


hear me through the hum

by whimsicalimages



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Background Relationships, CC-2224 | Cody Needs a Hug, Eventual Happy Ending, Fix-It of Sorts, Flashbacks, M/M, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, Post-Order 66, Post-Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Sneaking Around, Space Battles, Survivor Guilt, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24617626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whimsicalimages/pseuds/whimsicalimages
Summary: Rex, his closest brother, hisvod’ika,is still staring at him like he’s dangerous. “What do you remember, Cody?” he asks.‘What kind of question is that?’ Cody almost asks – but then pain lances through his head, and the world shatters into memory.(It's a long road from Utapau to Tatooine.)
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody & Ahsoka Tano, CC-2224 | Cody & CT-7567 | Rex, CC-2224 | Cody & Obi-Wan Kenobi, CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi, CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 92
Kudos: 1359





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes a show you’re really emotionally invested in ends and you immediately start a fix-it fic for a favorite character (that you’ve projected wildly onto) thinking it’ll be a nice quick 3k and end up with 27k after a three-week-long fugue, and all you can do is think: “Ah. Clowned by myself once again.” 
> 
> This fic is **complete** at approximately 27k, and I will be posting it in 4 chapters as I finish editing and formatting each chapter – if you want to read the whole thing at once, I am aiming to have it all up by June 13, so come back then. (I actually finished it a week ago, but then circumstances intervened and I was busy with the real world, so I am only now editing one chapter at a time.) It was a labor of love that would not have been possible without cheerleading and encouragement from [J,](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tumblingintowells) [M,](https://productivity-is-irrelevant.tumblr.com) and many others, as ever. Title is from Stars’ [“Are You With Me,”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OYlSevzY5Q) which I listened to on repeat writing this (see also: [“Everything Else Has Gone Wrong”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF0LF1gQZKs) and [“Hello My Old Heart”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AObC5VKMdEc) for the full vibe I was going for). 
> 
> Mando'a translations are available at the end of each chapter for mobile and hovertext for desktop.

Cody comes fully awake between one moment and the next. In the field, either you become a light sleeper fast or you don’t live long enough to learn.

He has a brutal headache and he already knows that his blaster’s gone, but when he cracks open one eye to check, he finds that he’s alone and unrestrained. For half a heartbeat he wonders who was stupid enough to capture him and not tie him down – if Cody’s captors haven’t killed him yet, they aren’t likely to kill him now; they probably want information – but he’d rather get a head start on breaking himself out than question his good luck.

His General will come for him sooner or later.

His head hurts more when he levers himself gingerly off his cot and into a vertical position. He presses a hand to his temple and finds a bandage that’s stiff in certain spots. Dried blood? A thought for later. This is some sort of medbay, so he supposes that makes sense, although he doesn’t know why they’d bother to fix him up. Another question to consider after he gets out of here.

Focus, he tells himself. Just because you can’t see the danger doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

His armor is gone, but that’ll only be a problem if he runs into any hostiles. He pads to the door on silent feet, missing his boots and wondering how he ended up on a ship humming through hyperspace without shoes.

The door opens for him, unlocked. This is all beginning to feel suspiciously easy.

A familiar blond head rounds the corner, and comes to a startled stop a few steps away from where Cody has instinctively plastered himself to a wall.

“Rex?” Cody asks, startled into dropping his guard completely.

“Cody,” Rex says. He’s not wearing full armor or even carrying his helmet but he looks wary, and he’s keeping his hands near his blasters. His eyes are hard.

He looks like he might be afraid of _Cody,_ like Cody might snap at any minute like a feral animal. Cody doesn’t like that look one bit.

“ _Vod_ ,” Cody says. “What’s going on?”

Rex, his closest brother, his _vod’ika_ , is still staring at him like he’s dangerous. “What do you remember, Cody?” he asks.

‘What kind of question is that?’ Cody almost asks – but then pain lances through his head, and the world shatters into memory.

-

(Programming is an insufficient word – it makes everything seem so clean.

Utapau is anything but clean, after the order comes down. They spend hours kicking up the red dirt of the planet, looking for a body they cannot find. He personally leads a team into several dead ends in the maze of ravines.

By the end of that first long day, all of them, to a man, have armor coated in a fine film of blood-colored dust.

All Cody knows gets rewired in an instant into a tangled mess under overarching orders. CC-2224 can only hear the sound of his own voice and the rush of forgetting things. He forgets what to think about the speck that is Obi-Wan Kenobi falling down a cliff face, made suddenly and unbearably fragile, as breakable as any other man. He forgets who he was meant to protect, who he chose over and over again to save.

He forgets who he had sworn himself to willingly, by creed. It’s taken away from him.

All he has is the orders, because he’s a good soldier, and good soldiers follow orders.

CC-2224 spends days finding sand and grit in unexpected places, during the cleanup. He wakes himself up from what little sleep he gets with great, wracking sobs he doesn’t understand the source of. He can’t remember his dreams except in short bursts – troopers yelling, a child crying, someone calling his name. Not CC-2224, but Cody.

Cody, there you are. All right, Cody, I will. Cody, you’ve never disappointed me. Thank you, Cody. One day, Cody, after the war is over. Commander Cody is the most loyal of men. _Nu gar kyr’adyc, Kote, ni n’duumi ibic. _Cody, _ke nu’ba’slanar._

On Utapau in the days after, he can’t remember whose voice it is, saying that chosen name like it’s a mantra – like it’s precious.)

-

He comes back to himself in the same sterile hallway, crouched on the floor and panting like he’s just run ten klicks in full kit. Rex is next to him, now, one hand on the back of Cody’s neck and another on his arm, holding him steady where he wants to fall to pieces.

“The General,” Cody gets out, the words choking him. “General Kenobi. I gave the order, Rex, I had him shot off a cliff, I killed my General, _ner jetii. Ni ru'kyrayci ner jetii_. Rex, I killed _Obi-Wan_ , what have I _done_?”

Rex sighs and gathers him close, taking Cody’s hand and putting it over his heart to feel the reassuring beat. He’s not wearing his cuirass, and his breathing is slow and even. Cody tries to match it and fails, and tries and fails again.

“It wasn’t your fault, Cody,” Rex says. “It was the chip. The chip that Fives tried to warn us about, the one that the Kaminoans put in all our heads. The Chancellor gave the order. You had no choice.”

“I should have chosen to eat my blaster,” Cody snarls at him, fingers clenching involuntarily in the fabric of Rex’s shirt. He forces himself to let go.

“You had no choice,” Rex repeats. It sounds like he’s been saying it a lot.

Long minutes pass while Cody finally evens out his breathing and begins to be able to think through the noise in his head. Rex holds him, solid and still, like Cody had done once or twice when they were cadets and Rex had gotten singled out by the trainers.

Cody inhales, and exhales. “Tano? Skywalker?” he asks. He can fill in the blanks, but he doesn’t want to.

“Skywalker’s unreachable. Commander Tano’s fine. I tried to kill her when the order came down, but she stole me and took out my chip,” Rex says. He hesitates before continuing. “She’s piloting now. We took a detour to get you, but now we’re heading to Coruscant.”

He remembers now, the dizzying overlay of _traitor_ and _Rex, vod’ika_ that had ripped through his mind when Rex had appeared in front of him on Utapau. It had barely made him falter a moment, but that moment had been enough for Rex to knock him out and, evidently, drag him onto a ship and take out his chip.

Cody pulls back. “Coruscant?” he asks, because it’s easier than thinking about Utapau. It’s easier than thinking about – it’s easier.

“Ahsoka thinks if there’s anyone left,” Rex’s voice falters a little but he clears his throat and continues. “If there’s anyone left, any _vode_ or Jedi who survived the extermination order, our best shot at finding them is the Temple intranet, even though the Chancellor is on-world. He’s the Sith Lord, the one the Jedi were looking for, who orchestrated the whole karking war – Darth Sidious.”

Cody feels a chill. They’d just been instructed to call him the Emperor. Or _my Lord._ They hadn’t gotten any other information, and with the chip, he hadn’t felt any impulse to ask. “And he’s on Coruscant,” Cody says. “Which he’s made into the seat of his Empire.”

Like a spider in the middle of a great web, bloated on victory. Just thinking about it makes Cody’s fingers itch for a firestarter.

Rex nods. “Yeah. But we need more information and I don’t have any better ideas for where to get it. If the Temple were completely cut off, they would have sent out a beacon, but we haven’t gotten anything.” He grimaces. “But then again, this ship is a piece of _osik , _so the comms aren’t great. We took it because it’s got an old med-droid and it’s less trackable and bigger than the other piece of _osik_ ship Ahsoka and I stole after Maul stole the one we were going to take. And it’s the only one we could trade for before Utapau.”

Cody raises an eyebrow.

“It’s a long story,” Rex says, exhaling. “And not a happy one.”

No, he can’t imagine it would be. Skywalker had given Rex the whole 332nd and left him on Mandalore with Tano, but if there were other clones on this ship, Rex would have said. Rex is the only one here. Cody doesn’t have to ask what that means.

Jesse. Ridge, Sterling, Vaughn. Cody hadn’t known most of them personally, but – it’s hard to be the one who survives.

“ _Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la_ ,” he says.

“ _Vor’e_ ,” Rex replies. His grip on Cody tightens and then releases, and he pulls him to his feet. He gives Cody the barest echo of his usual grin. “You ready to go see the Commander?”

“Rex’ika, I don’t think any of us are Commanders anymore,” Cody says wryly.

Rex’s smile gets a shade more genuine. “Good riddance.” Then his face falls. “Hey, you didn’t have to see – you didn’t find his body, did you?”

Cody shakes his head. If he’d had to remember that, he would still be on the floor shaking. “He fell into the river. We didn’t find him.”

He thinks maybe some part of him, the part of him that had been Cody and not CC-2224, had been trying to keep from looking too close. Hadn’t wanted to know, had led his team into dead ends on purpose. Grievous’ ship had disappeared, and Jango had always told them to assume someone was alive until the body was found.

But Cody can’t think about that, because in the end, that part of him lost to the orders. He did look, he did want to know, he couldn’t fight the cage he was in until the door slammed shut behind him. It wasn’t him but it was, it _was_. He can’t let himself think about any of it or he won’t be able to keep moving, and he has to keep moving. He shoves it down.

“Cody,” Rex starts, and must think better of it at what has to be showing on Cody’s face, because instead of saying whatever it is he was going to say, he says, “Let’s go see Ahsoka.”

Cody is only slightly unsteady as they walk, but Rex stands close enough to lean on if he needs it. Rex hadn’t been wrong – the ship is in rough shape, but as it hasn’t vented them into the emptiness of space yet, Cody resolves to be grateful. The build is Corellian, and those ships are made to last. It reminds him of Skywalker’s old junker, the one the General had complained endlessly about before losing it on Mandalore.

Before they get to the cockpit, he stops. “Rex,” he says. “How many days has it been since – since the order came down?”

Rex stops too, but doesn’t turn to face him. “Seven standard. I knew we had a short window to get you off Utapau before you got sent somewhere else, but we had to trade in the ship and we were only a few hours out from Mandalore. We put you under to take the chip out, you were asleep for close to a full day.”

Cody blinks. Mandalore is clear across the Rim from Utapau – at least three or four days, depending on the ship, and that’s taking the Hydian Way. It’s a straight shot through the Core, but the Chancellor must have that whole region swarming with patrols by now.

The Chancellor, who is apparently a villain out of one of Obi-Wan’s nightmares – the General’s nightmares, Cody corrects himself.

General Kenobi, not Obi-Wan. Cody’s lost that right. Maybe he never should have had it.

He shakes himself back to the present. “How’d you come for me so fast?” he asks Rex, meaning _why_.

Rex looks back and meets his eyes, reading the real question. “You’re my _ori’vod_ _._ I knew you’d eat your blaster if you snapped out of it and realized what that thing made you do,” he says, frank. “I couldn’t let that happen. I’ve buried too many brothers already.”

 _After the fighting ends,_ the General had said once, on some backwater planet that had been in the middle of its own conflict when the Separatists came, _whoever is left standing has to pick up the pieces. Bury the dead, clear the streets, move forward somehow. We can only hope that those who survive are better at building than destruction, better at protecting than attacking._

Cody locks down the memory, puts it somewhere he can unpack later. Or never.

Rex doesn’t seem to expect an answer, because he taps the button to open the cockpit door and walks through it, assuming Cody will follow.

Tano is already facing them, arms crossed. She’s got a blaster at her side, but no lightsabers. Another thing Cody doesn’t want to ask about. “Commander Cody,” she says.

“Commander Tano,” he replies, and points a thumb at Rex. “I hear you’re the one I have to thank for rescuing this one. And me.”

She visibly relaxes, and smiles faintly. “You’re welcome. And I’m not a Commander anymore,” she says. “Just Ahsoka. Or Tano, if it’s easier.”

“Then I’m just Cody,” he agrees.

“Well, Cody, I assume Rex has filled you in on some of it.”

“Mind-control chips, evil Supreme Chancellor, missing Jedi, Maul, Coruscant,” he says, forcing a lightness he doesn’t even remotely feel. “Did I miss anything? It seems like my week wasn’t as exciting as yours.”

“You sound like—” Tano cuts herself off, and shakes her head. “Never mind. Yes, we’re heading to Coruscant. I need to get into the Temple.”

“It’ll be under heavy guard, they have to be expecting Jedi to return there. Fox’s men are probably all over the place,” Cody says. “You know that kill order went to all the clones, for all the Jedi.”

Tano gets that obstinate look he’s seen too many times on the General, and on Skywalker. Must have been something they taught at the Temple. “I have to try,” she says.

“I know,” Cody says. “I’m in. And I’m betting Rex here would follow you to the end of the galaxy, if you asked.”

Rex scowls, but inclines his head. “You’ve got us, kid,” he says. “As long as you need us.”

A look of surprise briefly flicks over Tano’s face, but she pushes through it, nodding tightly. Jedi, Cody thinks, exasperated.

“I have three objectives. First, there’s a list in the Archives of all the Force-sensitive younglings born,” Tano says. “It’s on a crystal that updates itself. Nobody really knows how it works, or maybe Master Yoda does – did – but if nobody else has gotten it out, then we need to. That list can’t fall into the hands of the Sith. If it comes to that, we may need to destroy it.” She frowns. “Which I need to figure out how to do. It’s hard enough to cut kyber with a lightsaber, and I don’t have mine.”

Fox had complained repeatedly that the Temple was one big security nightmare, but just thinking about the layers of protection that any rightminded being would put on that data crystal alone makes Cody’s headache worse. “Second objective?” he asks.

“Find any Jedi still in the Temple or on Coruscant and get them out,” Tano says. “I have friends on Mandalore and Onderon who can hide people, but we’d have to move very carefully. There are bunkers in the lower levels that younglings might be hiding in – they need to be protected. If any survivors need help, they would have left some sort of trail to follow in the secure Temple intranet.”

If anyone left a trail, the Empire would be following it quicker than them, Cody doesn’t say. It’s been days. They all know it already.

“Third objective, figure out if there are any of your brothers who might have beaten the chip or who might be willing to help us. Volunteers only. Assuming you didn’t get demoted while I was away, you were basically running a third of the GAR, Cody. I was hoping you’d have some ideas for who to target.”

“I can think of a few,” Cody says slowly.

“Good,” Tano says. “Actually, fourth: someone has to be mounting an insurgency already. There are enough people who know the Jedi, who would never believe that we’re – they’re traitors. I want to know who’s leading it and how to get in contact with them.” She clenches her fist. “I can’t take out Sidious myself. I’m not strong enough, and I don’t even have my lightsabers. I think I felt him kill Master Windu, and he was one of the best duelists in the Order. Our only advantage right now is the fact that Rex and I are officially dead, so nobody will be worried about our movements.”

“Not the only advantage,” Rex says, nodding at Cody. “We have information. We know about the chips, and Cody here knows where all the supply depots are, and where half the troops are. If there’s an organized resistance and we can find them, we’d be an asset.”

“I’m not that much of one,” Cody says grimly. “The first thing they did the day after the order came down was put three ranks of nat-borns above me. I don’t know where they found them all, but that was an unofficial demotion if I’ve ever seen one – I don’t know much from the last seven days of troop movements.”

He hadn’t cared, as it was happening. He’d busted his _shebs_ for three years managing that many troops, and the chip had made him completely sanguine about letting some karking nat-born political cronies take over all that work with no formal handover. What the kark did any of them know about running an army?

On the other hand, that means plenty of _vode_ could have gotten lost in the shuffle. It’s not that likely since Fives was the only one who raised hell about it, but the GAR had plenty of smart men, men who might have known which way the wind was blowing if they’d gotten any hints at all. Brothers with better instincts than Cody’s, who wouldn’t have killed – anyone important to them.

“We can make it work,” Tano says. “The first step is Coruscant.”

Cody nods. “So, to recap, we’re going to Coruscant to break into the Temple where almost the entire 501st is currently stationed, which is a few blocks from the Senate and the Supreme Chancellor, who gave a kill-on-sight order for all Jedi, in order to _potentially_ find nebulous information that could get all of us killed twelve times over?”

This feels like a classic right out of the 501st playbook, so Cody supposes he should be grateful that it isn’t even more insane.

Tano and Rex glance at one another.

“Yes. But we have a plan,” Tano says.

Cody sighs. “Just making sure I had it right. I’m not going to like this plan, am I?”

“You’re going to hate the plan,” Rex confirms.

“The plan is ‘move fast, and don’t get caught.’”

“You were right,” Cody says. “I do hate this plan.”

Rex quirks a grin. “Do you have any better ideas?”

“No,” he admits. At least if he’s running on adrenaline he won’t be thinking about the General.

“Great!” Tano says, clapping her hands together. “Two days to Coruscant.”

-

Tano finds him in the hold, turning his bucket over. Rex had told him where his armor was and left him to it a few hours ago, but he hasn’t bothered trying to sleep, and he doesn’t want to know what time in the ship’s day cycle it is. He hadn’t managed much sleep on Utapau, had declined the pills Flask had offered him. He’d remembered nothing at all from the persistent nightmares that kept waking him up.

Now he knows they were just memories that the chip couldn’t completely suppress.

He’s scraped the sunbursts down to white. Once he removes the visor, his helmet will be unrecognizable, like he's a shiny who doesn't even know his own name yet, let alone his marks. He’s already done the rest of his armor.

Jango would have beaten him up and down the mats for the desecration, but Cody has spent the last three years doing a lot of things Jango wouldn’t have been proud of. There’s a very short list of things he holds sacred, and the gold paint isn’t one of them, no matter how much it hurts to take off.

Tano sits down next to him, watching his hands as he detaches the visor. She leans a familiar-looking DC-15A on the crate at his side. “Rex left his helmet behind,” she says. “Where I left my lightsabers.”

The moon Rex had mentioned, where they must have buried half the 501st. “It was good thinking,” he says. “Easier to disappear that way. Nobody will look for you if they think you’re dead.”

“Will they be looking for you? Since you just disappeared. I didn’t think to leave something obvious behind.”

He shakes his head. “Unlikely. By now they probably know I’ve either died or deserted, but a lot of brothers disappeared in the days after. More than usual. I’ll be noticed, but I won’t be unique.”

Tano lets the silence settle. She’s much better at being still, now, like her predator ancestors. He remembers her three years ago, running after Skywalker and adopting all his bad habits, but it seems like the months away taught her to be more patient, like – other Jedi.

He realizes his fingers have tightened on the visor to the point of pain, and he relaxes them one by one, setting it aside.

“I haven’t been able to feel Anakin since Order 66 went out,” Tano says abruptly. “I heard him saying something, and Master Windu yelling. It hurt, like a migraine. I haven’t felt him since then.”

Cody hates himself for it, but he has to ask. He doesn’t think of the distant figure tumbling from the cliff face. “General Kenobi?”

She shakes her head, face falling. “I don’t know. The Force is a whirlwind of pain right now. It has been for days, since the order went out. I felt so many, so many _deaths,_ and now I can’t feel – anyone. I’m sorry, Cody,” she says. “I would tell you, if I could.”

Cody can’t meet her eyes. He swallows. “When the order went out,” he begins, and takes a moment to steel himself before continuing. “I had him shot off a cliff. He was riding a varactyl and I ordered Tether to shoot him off a cliff.”

“Rex almost shot me,” she offers. “Obi-Wan’s lived through worse.” She gives him a faltering smile.

Cody knows. He was there for a lot of it. Still. “I gave the order. I couldn’t fight it.”

He hadn’t even known what he was fighting, and his General had paid the price.

Tano puts her hand on his shoulder, and he looks over at her. His throat aches like a sob wants to rip itself free, but his eyes remain stubbornly dry. The grief hasn’t caught up to him yet. He knows it’s only a matter of time.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she says. “It wasn’t you.”

He manages a short laugh. “You sound like Rex.”

“It’s true,” she insists. “None of you could fight it. It was designed to control you. Obi-Wan would say the same thing if he was here.”

He does know that. But it doesn’t really help, because Cody is the reason that he’s not here, and he hadn’t lied to Rex about what he would have chosen if he’d been given a choice. “I know.”

“I’m sorry, Cody,” she says again. “Try not to lose hope yet.”

He wouldn’t want you to, she doesn’t say, but Cody hears it anyway. He clears his throat. “Thanks for giving me back my Deece, Commander,” he says.

She smiles. “Figured you might need it. And it’s just Ahsoka,” she reminds him, and leaves him to watch hyperspace streak by.

-

(“You ever think about it? What you’d be doing if we weren’t soldiers, if there wasn’t a war on?” Waxer asks after Ryloth, in the mess hall.

“We wouldn’t exist,” Cody says bluntly.

Boil rolls his eyes and nudges him in the shoulder. “I’d be a pilot,” he says, grinning.

A chorus of groans. “You couldn’t fly your way through an empty sky without crashing,” Wooley says.

Boil sniffs. “If there wasn’t a war on, I’d have time to learn a new skillset.”

“Well, I wouldn’t get on any ship you were flying,” Waxer says.

“That’s hurtful,” Boil says, narrowing his eyes. “A man could get a complex, with brothers like these.”

Waxer laughs, and notices something across the room. He calls out, “What would you do, General?”

Cody turns to see General Kenobi raising an eyebrow at them and walking over to their table with one cup of dark caf filled to the brim and no food. Cody frowns.

“What would I do in what situation, Waxer?” the General asks.

“If you weren’t our General, sir. If you weren’t a Jedi.”

The General’s eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles, like he’s thinking of a private joke. Cody is, possibly, very slightly mesmerized. He forces himself to look down at his food.

“Oh,” General Kenobi says. “I expect I’d be a farmer on Bandomeer.”

Cody looks back up at him sharply in surprise. Silence stretches out at this perplexing comment.

“Bandomeer, sir? A _farmer_?” Wooley eventually ventures, in the tone of someone who’s unsure which of those is a more ridiculous notion. “That’s, uh, specific.”

“It is, isn’t it,” General Kenobi agrees blithely. He only makes them wait a few moments before taking pity and explaining. “I was supposed to be assigned there as a member of the AgriCorps. I only ended up a Jedi by accident, you see. I had aged out of the initiate program, but I was in the right place at the right time to help my Master with a critical mission.” He shrugs. “It was the will of the Force.”

Cody hopes he doesn’t look as bewildered as his brothers do, but it may be a lost cause. Their basic education in how the Jedi Order operates indicated that Jedi younglings often aged out without being taken as padawans, but somehow all the kriffing Masters in the Temple had overlooked _General Kenobi_? The man fights like a lunatic with no self-preservation at all, sure, but even Cody, Force-null as any clone, can tell he was born to wield a lightsaber. Not a spade.

Some of that might show on his face, because he meets the General’s eyes to find him looking back and smiling. Cody blinks and looks away. His face feels a little warm.

“I’m glad you’re not a farmer, General,” Waxer says, finally.

“Thank you, Waxer,” the General says, warm and amused. “Most days, I am, as well.”)

-

When they get within four hours of Coruscant, Tano gets an urgent comm from the Temple and calls Cody and Rex into the cockpit so they can all watch it.

She frowns, fiddling with her comlink. “It looks like it’s set to broadcast every hour,” she says. “And it uses Temple codes. We must have been in a dead zone before we hit hyperspace. Or the comms on this piece of junk are worse than I thought.”

She pulls it up on the main panel, and they all freeze at the image.

“This is Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Cody feels as if the air has gone from the room. For a moment he’s terrified that he’ll go for his blaster on reflex even at a holo, that they didn’t get all the Sith _osik_ out of his head, but his hands are steady at his sides. Steadier than he feels. His chest hurts.

The holo keeps talking, and part of Cody, the part that’s always analyzing and sorting information, is listening, but the rest of him is maybe in shock. Obi-Wan, he thinks numbly, mind tripping over the name. Obi-Wan.

“I regret to report that both our Jedi Order and the Republic have fallen, with the dark shadow of the Empire rising to take their place. This message is a warning and a reminder for any surviving Jedi: trust in the Force. Do not return to the Temple – that time has passed, and our future is uncertain. Avoid Coruscant, avoid detection. Be secret, but be strong.”

Cody feels like he’s been hit right in the solar plexus. He thought Obi-Wan was dead, he’d walked around for days thinking Obi-Wan Kenobi was dead by his hand, because he gave the order. His voice wasn’t his own but it _was_ , he had his General shot off a cliff face, even if he never found a body. Tano might have been holding out hope, but Cody had watched him plummet what seemed like half a klick into rocky waters, Cody had been the one to look for a body and find nothing, Cody had thought he was _dead_.

But General Obi-Wan Kenobi lives.

“We will each be challenged. Our trust, our faith, our friendships.”

Rex is stone-faced, and Tano’s gone three shades lighter and is gripping the console like she would bend it under her fingers if she could.

“But we must persevere, and in time, a new hope will emerge. May the Force be with you, always,” the holo finishes, and winks out. Cody can’t seem to drag his eyes away from where the image was.

“I’m not the last,” Tano whispers, snapping him out of it. “Obi-Wan – he had to make it back there to record this. He did this for the younglings, the padawans who would think it was safe, to tell them to hide. I’m not the _last_.”

Rex shifts on his feet. “These Sith didn’t do a very good job at total extermination, did they?”

“I’m not the last,” Tano repeats, hiccuping a watery laugh.

Cody meets Rex’s eyes, and whatever Rex sees there makes him put a hand on Tano’s shoulder. “You’re not the last, kid,” he says, and she throws her arms around him and Cody, stifling a few ragged breaths into Rex’s shoulder.

“Sorry,” Tano says, pulling back and swaying a little before planting herself and visibly reining in the relief. “Sorry, I just, I really thought I might be the only one left.”

He’d thought he killed his Jedi. He’d thought Obi-Wan looked so small from a distance, a speck of light against the rust-red of Utapau, he’d thought _there’s no body_ and ordered a search, he’d thought he killed the man he – well. He’d thought a lot of things.

Tano looks up at him, as if catching the tail end of his rioting emotions. “Cody,” she says. “You – is there anything you need?”

Cody forces himself to shake his head. That persistent pressure is back in his throat.

“Cody,” she says again, disapproving.

“I gave the order, Commander,” Cody says. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“It’s not about anyone _owing_ anyone anything, and that wasn’t you. You were being controlled. You weren’t yourself.”

That much, he knows. If he’d been in his right mind, he would sooner have jumped in front of the blast himself – it’s not his own death he’s been having nightmares about for the last two years. It’s not his own death that had him trying to memorize the perfect curve of a smile or the strong grip of a hand pulling him up. His own death hasn’t scared him in ages.

So yeah, he knows full well that he would have thrown his body in front of that AT-TE in a heartbeat if he could have fought the chip. But he couldn’t, and he didn’t.

“Commander,” he begins, then closes his eyes for a moment, and begins again. “Ahsoka. I still gave the order.”

“ _Vod_ ,” Rex says, dismayed.

Tano looks briefly as if she’ll keep pushing, but then she sighs and turns away. “Leave it, Rex,” she says. “We’ll just have to find Obi-Wan so he can yell at Cody himself.”

Cody has a million responses he wants to give, and none of them are coming out. Tano holds up a hand to forestall him. “Our immediate goals haven’t changed. We still need to save who we can,” she says firmly. “And we still need to get into the Temple and see what we can salvage, and what information we can get. Which means it’s time to disobey Obi-Wan again, for old times’ sake.”

She plugs in a new set of coordinates.

Rex frowns. “CoCo Town? That’s pretty far from the Temple District, even on the maglevs.”

“I have a feeling,” Tano says simply.

-

They land their little freighter in a crowded public shuttle bay full of rickety ships, one of a million bays like it on Coruscant.

“We’ll fit right in,” Tano says at Cody’s dubious look. “Nobody will check the plates on a freighter in this district, everyone’s constantly in and out with shipments. Now come on.”

“How are we getting into the Temple?” Rex asks.

“I’m going to take us through the entrance on 3720,” Tano says. “I never came up that way but Obi-Wan pointed it out to me once. He said it was one of the deepest ways in. Just stay close to me and keep your faces down.”

“How are we getting _back_ from the Temple?” Cody asks.

“With a little luck,” Tano says brazenly. She’s all Skywalker right now, Cody thinks, fond despite himself, and stifles the urge to reiterate his complaints about this plan.

They make their way along the streets and bridges of CoCo Town, following Tano to a dilapidated-looking lift and shuffling in. The keypad dings happily when Tano keys in a level, and plunges them downward at an alarming speed.

“You sure this is safe?” Rex asks, hand pressed to a wall.

Tano flashes him a smile that shows all her teeth. “Safe enough. We can take the public hovertrain to the Temple District, and then another lift.”

Cody doesn’t even want to know when she’d gotten so wise about the lower levels. At least there are no security cams in the lift – or on the level they’re headed to.

They follow her out, three shadows blending in with the crowds. Down here, at first it feels like nothing has changed – even at the beginning of the war, everyone living on the edges of the undercity had kept their head down and their feet moving. There are more patrols here than in the lower slums, but it’s not exactly the well-lit airiness of the Senate District 5000s. Below the 4200s, nobody’s ever wanted to ask any questions.

Cody keeps his hood up and his eyes sharp. On closer observation, the humans are acting largely the same, but the near-humans and more visible non-humans walk more furtively now than they used to. Twi’leks hurry along with their hoods up, and he spots a Bothan glancing either way before slipping into an alley, clutching something in one hand.

Here at the center of the civilized galaxy, it’s taken less than a month for the Empire to make everyone who isn’t human feel like they’re unwelcome.

Tano leads them to a train platform packed with beings, and they get herded onboard with the rush. Rex and Tano get shuffled down to sit with their heads bent, and Cody grabs for one of the ceiling straps. The trains on this level are notoriously shaky – these are, if Cody remembers right, the lowest trains that are still _mostly_ safe for commuters – and they have a few stops to go.

Obi-Wan had told him once that before the war it was a rite of passage for junior padawans to sneak out of the Temple and take joyrides on the roofs of the maglev trains. At the time, Cody had taken it as additional evidence that there was something about the Force that made all Jedi crazy from a young age.

One stop, and another. He hears a strain of familiar laughter that has him turning his head briefly, a second too long. Three troopers have walked in, probably on their way to the bars. Cody kicks Rex’s ankle so he’ll pull his hood down further, and shifts aside, hoping they won’t notice him.

No luck. “ _Su’cuy, vod._ What’s got you looking so gloomy? Haven’t you heard, we won the war!” one of them exclaims, shoving in next to Cody.

At least they’ve already started on the alcohol. “Just hate clean-up duty,” Cody says.

“Aw, yeah,” the man says, clapping him on the shoulder. “Come to 79’s for a drink on us when you’re through, uh. What’s your name?”

“Longshot,” he says, sparing a mental apology to the dead man. It’s a common enough chosen name, and the 212th’s Longshot had been a bit of a loner.

“Well, Longshot, I’m Wix, and I’m on my way to a good time. You know how these shore leaves are – never enough nights to get some real rest. I’m sure we’ll get put on our own clean-up duty tomorrow.”

Cody carefully doesn’t grimace. He has a pretty solid idea of what their clean-up duty is going to entail, and it won’t be anything good. “Good luck,” he says, meaning the opposite.

Wix stumbles slightly into Cody when the train stops. “Yeah, _vor’e_ _._ Well, this is my stop. See you later, _vod_.”

“ _Ret'urcye mhi_ ,” Cody replies, but Wix has already gone to his friends, taking their arms and dragging them out of the car. Cody watches them head off as the train rolls away, and has a belated moment of disorientation at how normal they seemed, how normal they thought their lives were, when they’ve completely forgotten their purpose. When they’ve been _erased_.

He fights down the shudder that wants to roll up his spine. That would have been him, just days ago, before Rex and Tano gave him back to himself. Before he remembered his own name and what he’d sworn on it.

A light touch on his wrist returns him to the present. Rex tilts his head towards the map above the door, which says they’re about to get to their own stop. Nobody seems to have noticed anything amiss – everyone is carefully not looking at everyone else.

Obi-Wan had always said that Coruscant was the easiest place in the galaxy to disappear.

_A trillion people, Cody, and each with their own story – isn’t that remarkable? I find it comforting, myself. To know that we are but drops in the sea of life, like so many others._

Cody had privately thought Obi-Wan would always stand out in a crowd, no matter the size. He’d thought he would know Obi-Wan from any distance and in any guise, at the very edge of himself with nothing ahead and freefall behind. But the chip had taken that away, too.

He realizes Rex has gotten up and is shoving him along towards the doors, and he manages to push through the passengers to the exit. Tano is following them, eyes darting from side to side.

“Thought for a minute there you were gonna get made,” Rex says lowly.

“Some of us know how to lie,” Cody replies.

“Come on,” Tano mutters. “We’ve still got a ways to go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a:
> 
> vod – brother  
> vode – brothers  
> vod’ika – little brother  
> ori’vod – older brother/closest brother  
> Nu gar kyr’adyc, Kote, ni n’duumi ibic – You can’t die, Cody, I won’t allow it.  
> ke nu’ba’slanar – don’t leave  
> ni ru'kyrayci ner jetii – I killed my Jedi  
> Nu kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la – Not gone, merely marching far away. (expression of sympathy/grief)  
> vor’e – thanks  
> shebs – ass  
> osik – shit  
> Su’cuy, vod – Hey, mate.  
> Ret’urcye mhi – Goodbye (lit: maybe we’ll meet again)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for the kind words <3 Y'all keep me going!

There are fewer people here, so they stick close to the walls until they hit a lift which takes them down another few hundred levels.

Cody doesn’t much like the look of this neighborhood. The streets are too empty, but not the clean kind – these are the kind where every corner might be hiding something you don’t want to meet.

He really hopes Tano is sure that they’re in the right place.

“Look for a door with blue wings, like the Order’s symbol,” Tano says, moving out of the lift confidently.

“This is supposed to be a _secret_ entrance, and the Jedi painted their symbol on it?” Rex asks under his breath.

“That symbol is painted on half the bars and hotels on Coruscant, Rex, although I’m sure most of them will be getting new paint jobs,” Tano says, voice turning bitter. “Nobody wants to look like they sympathize with traitors when we just won the war.”

She stops abruptly and signs for a halt, and quiet. Togruta hearing is sharper than human, Cody remembers – even the enhanced hearing of the clones.

Tano gives an all-clear, and motions them forward. They move silently through back alleys that make Cody tighten his grip on his blaster.

Rex spots it first, pulling both of them to a stop at a nondescript doorway with a Jedi symbol that has faded enough that it looks like old graffiti, the center completely gone so only the wings remain. It’s a tight fit when Tano hustles them through the door into what seems to be a completely dark and featureless box, even with the nightvision of the helmet.

“Of course Obi-Wan gave me one of the puzzle entrances,” Tano says after a full minute of nothing turning on to acknowledge their presence. “Typical. There should be a hidden switch somewhere, look for seams in the walls.”

Rex snorts and kneels obligingly to peer at the corners. “Nothing can ever be easy, huh, _vod_?”

Cody turns on his external helmet light for Rex, and examines the ceiling for cracks that aren’t there. “Not with _jetiise_ involved,” he says absently. Especially not with Obi-Wan involved.

One of the puzzle entrances, Tano had said. How many of the things are there, and are they all like this?

Tano makes a sound of victory, popping open a panel that Cody would swear hadn’t been there a moment ago to reveal an archaic-looking keypad with an indicator light blinking red. “All right, you two,” she says, one hand hovering over the keypad. “I have a feeling this will only work if I get it right the first time, so let me concentrate.”

They shut up, and she closes her eyes, mouthing a string of words that Cody can’t parse. Cody watches Rex get increasingly tense.

Eventually, Tano’s eyes blink open, and she types in a series of numbers lightning-fast.

The light on the keypad goes green, and they begin to rumble upwards.

“I hope the way out is easier to figure out than the way in,” Rex says.

Tano waves a hand dismissively. “There’s only a few of these puzzle doors, and the ones that let you in are different from the ones that let you out. Once this lift senses that it’s empty, it’ll go back down. We’ll have to take another way out.”

“That’s really not encouraging news on the exit strategy, Commander,” Cody says.

“Have a little faith, Cody. Trust in the Force,” she intones.

Jedi, Cody thinks, somewhere between amused and exasperated.

The lift slows to a stop and opens to another dark room full of crates. They file out and Tano pauses. It seems like an I’m-sensing-something-in-the-Force kind of pause, which is the kind of pause that Flask used to claim would give Cody a stress ulcer at fourteen standard.

“We should be in the Archive wing. I can’t sense anyone nearby, on any of the levels we’re close to. I can only feel – Darkness, outside that door. Stay close,” Tano says, and then hesitates, brow furrowing. “Wait. There’s something in here that the Force is telling me I need to find.”

“In one of the boxes?” Rex asks, dubious.

“We’re on a bit of a tight schedule,” Cody points out. He’d only been inside the complex a few times, but he’d studied the blueprints in training, same as any clone who might get put on protection detail, and he’s pretty sure they have a lot of ground to cover. He spares a moment to be grateful he wasn’t on Temple detail when the order came down, suppressing a shiver.

“The Force is telling me _very_ insistently. It’s clearer in this room than it feels beyond that door,” Tano says, walking over to an unremarkable, unlabeled box and opening it. She sighs, and rolls her eyes skyward. “Really? Fine, I don’t have time to fight this. Rex, do you have room in your pack?”

“Sure,” Rex says, sounding as baffled as Cody feels, and hands over his bag.

Tano curses under her breath as she shovels in what seems like a bunch of random pieces of metal and junk before handing it back to Rex. “Lightsaber components. Sorry for the extra weight,” she says. “Let’s get moving.”

She waves the door open, and they follow.

Tano misses a step and almost goes down as soon as she gets past the doorway, and he and Rex both catch her shoulders. She nods in thanks, and then signs that she’s fine – it’s probably something in the Force.

The Temple is dark around them as they move through the corridors on light feet. Cody is glad of his helmet’s nightvision once more.

Down here, everything is deserted, and it takes effort to keep his hands steady on his blaster. He’d never been down to these lower levels and he’s no Jedi, but something doesn’t feel right. Every time he’d been inside the Temple there had been beings everywhere – younglings, knights, the occasional trooper. Here, things are eerily still.

Tano stops at a door marked storage, and signs a halt. She fiddles with the keypad for a second and the door opens smoothly, automatic lights flickering on inside.

“I’ll keep an eye out,” Rex murmurs, and Cody nods and follows Tano in.

“Some of these droids should still be charged, we just need to find one who can help us—” Tano pauses and frowns. “That looks like Master Fisto’s astromech. Ar-Six, is that you?”

The droid turns on and lets out a sad beep.

“I’m sorry, buddy,” Tano says. “I’m sure he didn’t mean to leave you behind for so long.”

The droid beeps again. Cody wishes he’d learned binary.

“Can you help us find out what happened to him? It might be dangerous.”

An indignant series of noises. This droid seems as persnickety as Skywalker’s.

Tano raises her hands in surrender. “All right, all right,” she says. “Thank you, Ar-Six. Now come on, we’re heading to the Archives.”

The droid trundles after them out of the room, whirring very softly at the emptiness of the hall.

“Cody, Ar-Six, with me. Rex, watch our backs,” Tano says in an undertone. “I can’t sense anyone on this level, but I’m not sure we can trust my senses right now. The Force is clouded here – there’s so much death.” A faint pain chases across her features, but she turns and sets off at a light jog.

The only sound besides their steps is an echo of running water, which must be coming from the Room of a Thousand Fountains. Cody never saw it, but Obi-Wan had spoken about it like it was home, like it gave him some indefinable peace.

Cody doesn’t think he’s ever going to see it, now.

Tano’s second objective, Cody thinks with a sinking feeling, is unlikely to be possible. He doesn’t think they’ll find anyone left to save. He can see the fallen bodies of Jedi and troopers littering the rooms he catches glimpses of.

It’s not right to leave the dead without a pyre, but they don’t have the time and it would draw too much attention. All they can do for them now is live long enough to say their remembrances later.

He sees Tano almost-falter more than once and press on through it each time, packing down the grief to deal with later.

He knows Skywalker was her primary teacher, but he can see flashes where she acts so much like Obi-Wan that it hurts to watch. They’d been taught on Kamino that the Jedi didn’t have family, but Cody knows that was as much a lie as all the rest of it.

They pass through another hall into a stairwell carved right out of the stone of the Temple walls, and climb four levels before emerging into what must be the Archives.

The stacks are bathed only in blue light, and his helmet isn’t picking up any movement. Cody lets out the breath he was unconsciously holding, and Tano’s shoulders relax ever-so-slightly.

“I’m going to see if I can find the memory crystal with the list of younglings,” Tano says. “Check the computers for – anyone you can find. Any hint of other survivors, or younglings, or Obi-Wan. There must be more of us.”

Cody nods and pulls his bucket off as Rex takes Ar-Six to a terminal room and starts poking around. “What’s our timing?” Cody asks.

Tano makes a face. “As fast as possible. I don’t want to be here any longer than necessary. Let’s call it twenty standard unless we find what we need before that.”

Cody nods, and Tano turns to another set of stairs, taking them two at a time. He takes a minute to jog up and down the stacks, registering the exits. Still no movement. He goes after Rex into the access room.

“The last few days of incoming transmissions are all propaganda for Palpatine’s new Empire,” Rex says, disgusted. “The Jedi haven’t left anything obvious, or if they have, someone’s erased it. Ar-Six pulled up records for Generals Fisto, Windu, and Koon – all KIA.”

They were three of the best, thinks Cody, sick with it. He doesn’t want to imagine what Wolffe will do if – when they get him out. 

“That’s not all. You’re listed as a deserter, with kill-on-sight orders. Kenobi’s listed as missing, and his bounty is the highest I’ve ever seen. Top of the wanted list. I got listed KIA, but Ahsoka’s missing with a bounty, too. Way lower than Kenobi’s.” He looks like he’s fighting a grin. “Guess they figure she was just a padawan when she left. Not much of a threat.”

They share a look at that, and Rex breaks first into peals of silent, helpless laughter, Cody following shortly. Ahsoka Tano, who was apprenticed to Anakin Skywalker, caught Maul, survived three years of active duty, and escaped a massacre at seventeen standard – not much of a threat? Underestimating Ahsoka Tano is going to come back to bite Palpatine in the _shebs_ so hard that it’ll bring his whole sorry karking life down around his ears. Cody can only hope he lives to see it.

He sobers up. There’s still a name Rex hasn’t mentioned. “Skywalker?” he makes himself ask, pushing through the regret at the way Rex’s face immediately goes blank.

“Not listed,” Rex says, grim. “I’m hoping that means he managed to escape and wipe his own record.”

Cody knocks their shoulders together gently. “Any _vode_ break through?” he asks.

Rex shakes his head. “Not yet, not out loud. But with the way Fives died, and Kix disappeared – someone was working hard to stop that from happening.”

Cody hums. He did say he had a couple ideas, and there might be a chance. “Ar-Six,” he says. “Pull up the record of clone trooper CT-1409.”

The droid beeps an affirmative, throwing up the data. Echo’s ID card got an update for Special Ops after they got him out of Skako Minor and he joined up with the Bad Batch, but it’s outlined in red now.

“Echo? What are you up to, _vod_?” Rex asks, crossing his arms.

Cody doesn’t answer, tapping through the records of the rest of Force 99. _Deceased: KIA. Deceased: KIA. Mygeeto, H.R. 7958.770._ They’re all the same, Cody thinks.

And they’re all wrong.

Rex sucks in a breath. “What happened? The Batch were the best of the best,” he says, and then frowns. “Wait, why were they on Mygeeto? I thought Bacara was heading the mop-up there. General Mundi never liked getting extra help.”

“That’s the thing. They weren’t on Mygeeto,” Cody says. “Or they were never supposed to be. I sent them to Boz Pity to rendezvous with General Vos in the push to break the siege there. We needed their kind of distraction.”

Rex stares at him. “The Bad Batch and General Vos? What the kark was going on in your head that made you think that was a good idea?” he asks, incredulous.

“We were almost through,” Cody says, defensive. He’d thought it was a good plan at the time, with the added bonus that it got the 99 out of his hair for at least a ten-day. “Sometimes, a little chaos is exactly what you need.”

Obi-Wan had told him that once, early on in the war. Cody had only come to see the wisdom of it later.

“That’s not what I’d call a _little_ chaos,” Rex says.

“You worked with Skywalker for three years, you have no room to throw stones.”

“You worked with Kenobi!”

Cody opens his mouth to continue to argue, then promptly closes it. There’s no winning that one with his dignity intact. “Doesn’t matter now. The dating here is also wrong – all our clocks got reset. The Chancellor sent out a declaration that the calendar would be reset to Year Zero, Day Zero in honor of the glorious foundation of the Empire. This is still in CRC.”

“Didn’t know he reset the calendar. Seems like overkill to me, but I guess I never gave much thought to what I’d do if I were an evil dictator.”

“You don’t want anyone to remember the past when you’re trying to erase it,” Cody says. “But the point is, the date’s wrong and the place is wrong, and the Batch was a black ops team. They still reported to me when they were picking their own missions, but I’d bet there’s plenty even I never heard. I was the only one who updated their records. The General had access, but it would have been revoked when the order came down. I didn’t check in with them when I was on Utapau – they would have contacted me once their mission was through, but they never did.” He nods at the screen. “And I’m not the one who wrote up these KIAs.”

“They faked it,” Rex says, understanding dawning.

“They faked it,” Cody confirms.

“Fives and Echo were close, the 501st absorbed them after Rishi,” Rex says, thoughtful. “When we got him off Skako, I told Echo that Fives was gone. How he died. He must have gone digging.”

“I’m glad he did. Although it was risky of them to leave such an obvious trail for me.”

“They’re the Bad Batch, _vod_. They take insane risks all the time. Besides, Echo probably knew I’d come for you.”

Cody shrugs. “Or maybe Hunter and Crosshair were hoping a good deed like luring me in while I was still brainwashed and killing me or taking out my chip would cancel out the debt they owe me from Felucia.”

“You know, one day you’re going to have to tell me how exactly you managed to get an otherwise-unaccountable elite strike team in your back pocket.”

“That’s for me to know and you to never find out, Rex’ika,” Cody says, clapping a hand to Rex’s shoulder as Tano appears in the doorway.

Rex straightens. “The list?”

“I haven’t been able to find it,” Tano says, shaking her head. “And someone wiped the security recordings, so I don’t know who’s been in here besides Obi-Wan since the order went out. We don’t have time to do a deep search, we need to get out of here – right now, I don’t trust my sense of the Force to give us enough warning if someone comes looking. If I couldn’t feel the crystal with the list, maybe Obi-Wan got it out. Or we’ll just have to hope that it’s as hidden from the Sith as it is from me.”

“Should we take anything else? Fox’s people don’t seem to have gone through here, yet,” Rex says.

“I think not. Don’t move,” says a new voice before Tano can answer, and a lightsaber comes to rest at Rex’s throat.

They all freeze, and Cody forces his hands away from his blaster. Blue lightsaber means friendly, he tells himself. Then again, right about now he wouldn’t blame even the friendliest Jedi for slashing first and asking questions later when faced with a pair of men who have the same face as those who slaughtered Jedi by the thousands.

An old human woman in Jedi robes emerges from the shadows, her blade still steady.

“Master _Nu_?” Tano asks, shocked out of a whisper.

“Young Ahsoka,” replies the Jedi. “Are these clones here to kill me, or not?”

“We aren’t,” Rex says. “Could you put the lightsaber down?”

She looks at him for a moment, and then inclines her head. The blue light winks out. Cody exhales.

Tano is still staring at Nu. “There were Sith mind-control chips in their heads. The clones, I mean. I got Rex’s chip out, and then we stole Cody and took his out, but – it’s a killing field out there, Master Nu,” she says. “So many dead without pyres. I didn’t even sense your presence.”

Nu’s face crumples, but only for a moment before she reins herself in. “I know. Even here, the echoes are so very loud. There is so much pain.” She shudders, and there is desolation in her eyes. “I came back to save what knowledge I could, but I fear it will be very little.”

Tano puts a careful hand on Nu’s arm. “Maybe we can help with that,” she says. “If you tell us what to take.”

“Some of it,” Nu says. “Some of it will be unsalvageable, I’m afraid. There’s too much to take more than a bare fraction.”

“We’ll do what we can. What we must, ma’am,” Cody says.

“Have any of the guards spotted you? What do you need us to take?” Rex asks.

“I have been the Chief Librarian and Master Archivist of this Temple for decades, young man. Rex, was it?” Nu asks, and continues at Rex’s nod. “Well, Rex, if you think I don’t know every trapdoor and hidden nook in this place better than some jumped-up _Sith Lord_ , you’d better think again. I’ve been compiling datachips here for two days now, and you’ll be taking most of them.”

Rex looks taken aback at her vehemence. Cody is starting to understand why Obi-Wan had spoken so highly of the Temple Librarian.

Nu regards them calmly. “You will take these, and I will remain to finish what I came to do. If this is how our Order ends on Coruscant, we ought to make it a pyre for our lost ones,” she says. “This Temple will remain a place of death, otherwise, Sith or no Sith in its walls. Fire will cleanse it, so new things may grow after the night has passed.”

Tano startles. “But – the archives, the artifacts and lightsaber crystals. Your library!”

Nu smiles at her. “Much of that is preserved in the deep vaults, and any fool who tries to open those using the Dark will not fare well. And besides, the Jedi are not made up of lightsabers and holocrons, are we? We are made up of the strength in our hearts, the deeds of our hands, and the Light which we follow.”

Cody blinks away the sudden moisture that springs to his eyes, and coughs. “General Kenobi used to say that,” he says at Nu’s curious look.

“You served with Master Kenobi! Of course he’d be a man for the classic philosophies,” Nu says, delight flashing across her features before somberness takes hold again. “But let us not waste time. My life’s work was keeping the archives, yes. But I live still, and now that work must change to keeping the knowledge _,_ and passing it on.”

Jedi, Cody thinks, a little awed.

Nu takes two small pouches from the folds of her robes, handing them to Rex and Cody. Cody hears the shift-clack of datachips. “These I entrust to your keeping, Ahsoka Tano, Rex, Cody.”

“We will keep them safe, Master,” Tano swears. “We also came to look for survivors, and to destroy the list of Force-sensitives. That memory crystal is too important to fall into the wrong hands, but I don’t know where it was placed after we recovered it from Bane.”

Nu seems somehow amused by this. “Not to worry. I know precisely where it is,” she says, and pulls a second lightsaber from her belt. To Cody’s eyes, it’s a different construction than the one she’d held to threaten Rex earlier.

“I don’t understand,” Tano says. That makes at least two of them, Cody thinks.

“The memory crystal is made of kyber, and we don’t have the time to destroy it here. Best if you take it somewhere very remote, or you’ll send up a shockwave in the Light strong enough to make even a Sith take notice,” Nu says, and holds out the lightsaber to Tano expectantly until she takes it.

Tano’s eyes widen in realization. “Master Nu!” she hisses. “In a _lightsaber_? What would Master Yoda say?”

Nu shrugs and turns to put her hand on a biolocked drawer, which pops open. “Nothing useful, I expect,” she says. “He became quite intractable after Master Yaddle’s passing, you know. But he’s not here, and I am.”

That doesn’t sound very Jedi to Cody, but what does he know? These are desperate times.

Tano crouches to give Ar-Six the lightsaber and Nu takes a box from the drawer. “I also took the liberty of pulling these from storage,” Nu continues, handing the new box to Tano, too. “I believe Master Vos purified the synthetic crystals some months ago in one of his rare fits of productivity, though unfortunately they’re still red. I had a feeling I ought to keep them up here, though it’s quite against protocol.”

Tano looks overwhelmed, so Cody nudges Rex, who puts a hand on her shoulder. She stiffens and comes back to the present, and opens the box, which contains another two lightsabers. How many lightsabers can this librarian possibly have hidden?

“These belonged to Ventress,” Tano says, turning them over. “I’m familiar. They’re Makashi-style.”

“They will serve you well enough until you have your own,” Nu counters. “And besides, in these uncertain times, you may find allies in unexpected places. Perhaps those lightsabers will yet find a way to where they are meant to be.”

Ventress had been involved somehow in Tano’s departure from the Order, if Cody recalls correctly – Obi-Wan had said she abandoned Dooku and stopped being a threat, and months later Cody had heard she died in some minor dust-up on the edge of Wild Space. But he’s not going to question Jedi intuition. Not here.

“Thank you, Master,” Tano says, and bows formally to the elderly Jedi.

“Thank me by surviving another day, Ahsoka Tano. And don’t fret,” Nu says, and grants them one last smile. “We’ll meet again, if the Force should will it. I will set pyres in the main halls and make sure Master Kenobi’s beacon remains unharmed. Now go, so the flames can light your path.”

“Thank you,” Tano says again, and turns to a different entrance than the one they had used, Cody and Rex following.

“May the Force be with you,” Cody hears Nu say. “Always.”

-

(He’s nursing a drink at 79’s and watching as Boil and Crys loudly regale Peel with stories of the early days of the war. Peel is a new addition, now that the General is back from the – back from his mission. His undercover mission. Where the Council had him fake his own death and not tell anyone. They’d even gone to the trouble of sending Cody and some of the 212th on a wild bantha chase half the Rim away during the fake funeral, presumably to stop him from asking too many questions. Or requesting a vengeance mission. He scowls.

Peel laughs loud and bright at whatever Crys is saying. The shinies, Cody thinks, are somehow getting younger. He feels inescapably old today, and wonders if this is how a birth-born twenty-six-year-old man feels. If Jango Fett’s bones ached in his twenties the way Cody’s do now.

A hand comes down on his shoulder. “ _Vod_ ,” Rex says, taking a seat next to him. “What’s got you so gloomy over here?”

Cody smirks at him and doesn’t answer the question. “Happy decant day, _vod'ika_ ,” he says instead.

“I’m older than you in spirit,” Rex grumbles, scowling.

Cody snorts. “Boil will tell you – nobody is older than me in spirit.” Also, working with General Kenobi has prematurely aged him, even for a clone. It’s the one thing he and Flask agree on.

Rex gets his drink, and they let the quiet settle between them.

“Shouldn’t you be happy?” Rex asks eventually. “You got your General back. Don’t have to train a new one.”

He’d never admit it to anyone, least of all Rex, but he’d spent the week after the funeral he couldn’t go to doing his level best to drink himself into oblivion. He hadn’t wanted to be aware enough to know who their new General would be. He hadn’t wanted a new General at all.

The worst part might be that he _understands_ , certainly more than Skywalker, from what Rex has said about those few hellish days when Skywalker was throwing himself headlong into revenge in a thoroughly un-Jedi-like way while Cody was trying to pickle himself.

If he’d been told by his superior officers that some convoluted scheme where he had to fake his death was the only way to save the leader of the Republic, he wouldn’t like it, but he’d obey like any good soldier, and accept the personal consequences. The General is as good a soldier as the rest of them, and this war is bigger than the personal.

He understands, but he doesn’t like it.

“Yeah,” he says at length, after too much time has passed.

Rex gives him a sideways glance, but apparently accepts his reluctance to talk about it. “Well, at least General Skywalker won’t be trying to murder anyone in revenge for his _vod_ this week,” Rex says lightly. “That was fun to cover for.”

“And here I thought the Jedi didn’t go in for that type of thing,” Cody says, raising an eyebrow.

Rex knocks his glass against Cody’s. “Between you and me, Codes, I think we’ve got the three least _Jedi_ of all the Jedi,” he says. “Also the three best, probably because of that. And the craziest.”

I’ve got the best of them all, Cody thinks. “Jedi are all karking crazy,” he says.

“You know ours are crazy even for Jedi,” Rex says. He eyes Cody. “Maybe yours in particular, since he did technically train mine, so the crazy has to be passed down somehow.”

“I know,” Cody says. He does know.

“I think Tano still has stars in her eyes from the holos of Kenobi dual-wielding,” Rex offers.

Cody studies the rim of his glass. That’s not surprising. He can’t feel the Force, but watching the General fight makes him believe there has to be _some_ kind of higher power.

He realizes he’s forgotten to respond when Rex peers at him, and then leans back so far he looks like he’ll fall from the stool. “Oh, fierfek,” Rex says. “That bad, huh? I didn’t realize.”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” Cody says, cursing his own inattention.

Rex opens his mouth, and then closes it, then rallies. “Well, I just – are you ever gonna say anything about it? To him?”

Cody shrugs one shoulder. “What is there to say?”

High Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi may be a man who fights and bleeds like all the rest of them, but he’s still a Jedi. He’s still Cody’s CO. Cody refuses to weigh him down just because of something as ridiculous as his feelings. He’d rather keep his silence and be allowed to stay, to offer what protection he can.

Rex frowns mightily, as if he’s heard the thought.

Cody puts up a quelling hand. “Leave it, Rex.”

“All right, _vod_ ,” Rex says. “But I’ll be here if you want to talk about it. Or drink about it.”

Cody smiles a little. “Thanks.”)

-

With Nu providing a distraction, they manage to get to another of the puzzle doors quickly and without incident, although Cody feels lost enough that he’s blindly following Tano most of the way. The blueprints they’d received in training hadn’t covered the maze of storage rooms, ancient archives, meditation enclaves, and endless hallways that make up the lower levels of the Temple.

Ar-Six beeps mournfully when Tano keys open this door, much quicker this time.

She bites her lip. “I know, buddy. But it’ll be even more dangerous out there. Are you sure you want to come?”

The little droid runs itself into her legs in admonishment.

“All right, all right,” she says. She talks to droids as if they’re sentients, the same way Skywalker does, Cody thinks bemusedly. “Then stay quiet, okay? We’re just going to be three inconspicuous travelers and their loyal astromech.”

Ar-Six beeps an affirmative, and they file into a lift which takes them to another level, and then they’re in the dimly-lit underbelly of the Senate District. Cody’s pretty sure the locals call this neighborhood Hatchet Town, which at least sounds like somewhere that nobody, including the Empire, would bother patrolling.

“Doesn’t seem like they ever fixed this place after the Zillo Beast got loose,” Rex says.

“They didn’t,” Ahsoka says shortly. “Why help those living here below when they could just use mag-support struts to rebuild the levels above?” She shakes her head in disgust. “We need to keep moving, but there should be a trolley we can take on this level. Did you find anyone on the Temple ‘net saying anything useful, anything against the Empire? Subversives, rebels?”

“Didn’t have time to look before Nu found us,” Cody says. “But nobody left loud messages about anything on the intranet.” He suspects that means those who were in the Temple didn’t have time to leave any message at all. 

Right on cue, they see a cloud of dark smoke cross the sky, levels and levels above them.

“I hope she gets out,” Tano murmurs. “Come on.”

There are more people in the next few blocks, but nobody seems interested in asking questions, or maybe Tano is hiding them in the Force. Just three travelers and their loyal astromech.

The trolley is rickety, and they swap lines twice in the name of making their path as confusing as possible before ending up back in CoCo Town, but instead of leading them straight to the ship, Tano turns off towards a low grey building with a neon sign on the front proclaiming it to be open for business. The name distantly rings a bell in Cody’s head, but he can’t quite place it.

“A diner?” Rex asks.

“Not just any diner,” Tano says, flashing a smile and pushing the door open with one gloved hand.

A droid waitress wheels over to them and hustles them into a booth, ignoring Ar-Six when it beeps at her indignantly. “Welcome to Dex’s Diner. What’ll you be having?”

“Hi, Flo, we’ll have three of the gartro omelet special,” Tano says.

“Of course, sweetie,” the droid says, gliding over to the kitchen doors.

“This isn’t one of your obligate-carnivore meals that you need to maintain your nutritional requirements but that I’ll think is disgusting, is it?” Rex asks, suspicious.

“Would I do that to you, Rex, after all these years?”

“Yes,” Rex says flatly.

“Yeah, I would,” Tano admits. “But no, it isn’t.”

She doesn’t look like she’s planning on giving them any more useful info, and Cody’s itching to be off this planet, to be doing something, to be searching for – to be searching. Even without a real starting point. “Care to share what we’re doing here, Co – Tano?” Cody asks, almost slipping. He frowns at himself. 

Tano grins at him, toothy under her hood. “Asking for more hints and a heading,” she says.

He huffs. That’s a no on answers, then.

An enormous besalisk comes out of the kitchen within minutes. “Three gartro specials, coming up,” he bellows, and makes his way over to their table. “Friends never have to wait long at Dex’s Diner.” 

Tano lowers her hood enough to show her face and smiles hopefully. “Hi, Dex,” she says.

“Little akul!” the besalisk says, surprised. “It’s not safe for you to be here, young one. I hope you haven’t gone to the Temple – they say the top levels will be cleared out and turned into a palace for the Emperor. These are dark days, and bad business all around.”

Tano grimaces. “I know, Dex, but I need some information and you were the only one I could think to go to.”

“Hm, well. Let’s see if old Dex can help an old friend,” he says. “You’ve gotten much taller since I last saw you, you know. Your, ah, brother must be very proud.”

She bows her head. “I hope so,” she says, then lowers her voice. “But I don’t know where he is, or if he’s even still alive. We’ve already been to the Temple, but found no trace of where to go from here. We’d really like to find Ben, or some of our other friends.”

“Ben, eh? Haven’t heard from him in a while,” Dex says. “Wasn’t sure he’d make it on-planet with all the chaos up above.”

“He did, at least long enough to risk his life setting a message beacon warning people to stay away,” Tano says. Cody sees her clench and unclench one fist at her side.

He chuckles. “That sounds like Ben, all right, but it seems you’re keeping up the fine family tradition of recklessness, too,” he says, and then nods at Cody and Rex. “Who’re they, little akul?”

“Cody and Rex,” Tano says, and gestures to Ar-Six. “And Ar-Six. They’re friends.”

“Friends? They look like soldiers to me, but I know Ben must have taught you better than to bring a shriekhawk into a tooka’s den.”

 _I suppose you think you’re the tooka, Dex_ , Obi-Wan would respond. Cody can almost hear his voice over the buzz of the air circulators. He may not be able to feel the Force, but something about this place feels – comfortable.

“They are, but they’re friends, Dex. The Kaminoans put mind-control chips in all the clones, they had no choice after the Chancellor ordered them to execute the Jedi,” she says, voice low. “Cody and Rex have their chips out, but most of their brothers don’t.”

Dex leans back. He makes no gesture like Jango or another Mandalorian would, but looks calmly at Cody and then at Rex. “You have my sympathy, and my friendship, should you ever find yourself in need of either. Dark times, indeed.” Dex turns back to Ahsoka. “As for you, young one, that was a lot of very interesting information you just handed me. Be careful who you give it to.”

Tano rolls her eyes. “Ben trusted you,” she says simply. “So I’m trusting you, too. Information is all I have to offer.”

“Not all you have, little akul, never all. And let’s hope he trusts me still,” Dex says with a smile.

“Will you tell us where he is?” Cody asks, and then bites his tongue. He feels as impatient as a shiny.

“Patience, Commander. Don’t give me that look, of course I know who you are,” Dex says. He hums, a speculative gleam in his eye. “I knew who you were when I heard your name, since I’ve been hearing about you for some time now from our mutual friend. All sorts of people come to the Diner with all sorts of gossip, you know. From all the way down below to all the way up above,” he says. “For instance, I had a pleasant chat with another friend yesterday who said that Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan recently adopted a baby girl. He and Queen Breha have apparently said that she’s the light in their life which is guiding them through this difficult time, after the devastating betrayal of the Jedi Order, which they were such great supporters of, and the unfortunate passing of their dear friend, Senator Amidala.”

That’s a lot of information Dex is trading them right back, Cody thinks.

“Of course, there were rumors for years that Organa was having an affair with Amidala. I know none of us here would believe such baseless gossip, but if it were true, that would only add to the tragedy of the tale. The good Senator was buried still pregnant, as you may have heard.” Dex spreads his hands. “Whether it was Organa’s, I suppose we’ll never know, but I’m glad that the Royal House of Alderaan was able to take in a child in such difficult emotional circumstances.”

Cody’s mind whirls. Amidala and Skywalker had been the worst-kept secret in the GAR, and Rex had said Amidala was showing the last few times she and Skywalker had talked. But if Amidala died – there’s only a few possibilities that fit all the variables.

“It will be hard for Senator Organa to keep serving in the Senate after the disgrace of his close allies,” Cody says carefully. He hadn’t learned nothing, following Obi-Wan to all those interminable diplomatic functions and medal ceremonies. Yeah, he wasn’t cut out for intel work, but he at least got a bit of practical education. Unlike Rex, whose General wouldn’t know subtle if it punched him in the face.

Dex grins in approval. “I’m sure he’ll do his best to uphold the peace of the new Empire. Nobody wants their child to grow up in a warzone, least of all a man who’s seen them personally. Bail Organa has won many admirers for his strong moral compass, and he has always understood that we all have our roles to play.”

“I hope he’s spending time with his family in the wake of so much tragedy,” Rex says, catching on.

Tano watches the back and forth with sharp eyes.

Dex nods. “The Senator has taken some time off to be with the Queen and the baby. As the ‘nets have it, she’s been officially named Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan.”

At the name, Tano goes predator-still at Cody’s side. Cody strikes a few more options off his mental list.

“Nice name,” Cody says.

“An appropriately royal one,” Dex agrees. “In any case, I’ve taken up enough of your time, my valued customers and friends. Is there anything else our humble establishment can offer you?”

Tano is still somewhere else in her head, and doesn’t answer. Cody shrugs.

“It might be helpful if you have a spare comm we could borrow,” Rex suggests.

“Good man. I’ll get you those specials, and a comlink. I have a few extras lying around. You never know what might come in handy.”

“Thank you,” Cody says. “For all of it.”

“You’re welcome, my friend. Anything for one of Ben’s,” Dex says, and leaves them with a wink.

“Interesting friends you’ve got, Commander,” Cody says quietly. Interesting friends that Obi-Wan passed along, apparently. “Why is the name important?”

Tano snaps out of her stillness, and leans in. “I saw Padmé, before she died. She told me that she wanted to name the baby Leia.”

Cody and Rex share a glance.

“It sounds like we have a Senator to track down,” Rex says.

-

Once they’re in the air, they have more obstacles on their hands.

“We need to actually find Senator Organa, and then we need him to trust us,” Tano says. “We’d be putting him in even more danger just by going to him, especially if he’s somewhere the public would expect him to be on Alderaan.”

“Why wouldn’t he trust us? In his eyes, you’re not only a Jedi, but a Jedi who was friends with Senator Amidala,” Rex argues.

“I _was_ a Jedi. It’s been a while, so he might not even remember me. And if his bodyguards suspect anything strange at all, they’ll shoot you and Cody first and ask questions never, and we’re a suspicious-looking group.”

Cody’s hands go still on his pad. No, that’s a crazy idea. Isn’t it?

 _Sometimes, a little chaos is exactly what you need_ , Obi-Wan had said.

Tano is still talking. “We might not even make it past planetary defense on Alderaan, if we get really unlucky and they figure out this isn’t a freighter carrying ordinary cargo. We need to send a message ahead, maybe even meet at a secondary location.”

Cody clears his throat. “We might have a solution that would solve all these problems,” he says, already pulling up Tech’s logs. Every Batcher had been paranoid to the extreme about leaving trails, but Tech had backchannels inside backchannels, and he’d probably been the one to leave those discrepancies for Cody to find. Out of all of them, he’s the one Cody is most likely to be able to reach.

Rex looks at what Cody’s typing, and then stares at him. “You can’t be serious,” he says.

“Are you sad that I never got you an elite hit squad for your decant day, _vod'ika_?” Cody asks, distracted.

“She’s a baby,” Rex stresses.

“You want to give the baby a hit squad?” Tano asks. “ _That’s_ your solution? How is that a solution?”

“I want to give Senator Organa a hit squad,” Cody corrects. “He’s going to need it. And this isn’t just any hit squad.”

Rex snorts. “Yeah, it’s a bunch of specialized _vode_ who happen to be maniacs,” he says. “Remember how I told you we saved Echo on Skako Minor? It was the four of them, General Skywalker, Jesse, and me. Kix and Codes here would have come along, but this one got his ribs broken before that part of the mission even started.”

“Not my fault the ship fell on me,” Cody says mildly.

Rex ignores him, and continues. “Seven of us on an extraction mission to get a brother previously assumed KIA out of the Techno Union’s most secure facility, coming in hot on a planet full of hostile droids and more hostile natives who didn’t speak Basic. And these guys treated it like it was any other kriffing day.”

For the Batch, it may as well have been, Cody knows. They’d gone on some pretty karked-up missions. He’d been the one to _send_ them on some pretty karked-up missions.

“They sound, uh,” Tano says, fishing. “Competent.”

Cody chuckles. “They’re definitely that.”

“They’re just also lunatics,” Rex says. “And Echo, who joined up with them after. So, lunatics and Echo.”

“Echo was an ARC before he went missing,” Cody points out.

“Yeah, you’re right. They’re all lunatics,” Rex admits, chagrined.

“Okay, maybe this is an obvious question,” Tano says. “They’re clones, so they’re probably chipped. How do we know they won’t try to kill me, and probably you two?”

Rex shakes his head. “They got out,” he says. “We found their records in the Temple computers and they were listed KIA, but the logs were all wrong. They left a trail for Cody.”

“Competent and sneaky,” Tano says approvingly. “But how will they help us with Senator Organa?”

“Like I said, he’s going to need a specialized team if he’s going to protect that kid from Palpatine in the long term,” Cody says. He’s been trying not to think about the implications of a baby Skywalker running loose in the galaxy. “Also, if we have any luck and they haven’t gotten themselves into some _osik_ , Tech and Echo will be able to make contact with Organa quicker and more securely than we could. Especially if we set the rendezvous near enough to Alderaanian space.”

“Can we reach them?”

“We’re about to find out,” Cody says, and goes to where Ar-Six has plugged itself into a wall to recharge. “Ar-Six, can you send a message to this frequency and make it untraceable?”

The droid gives him a series of annoyed beeps, but blinks an indicator light green when Cody puts the chip in.

It’s only moments before the droid beeps again, and displays one word: _Acknowledged._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a: 
> 
> Jetiise – Jedi (plural)  
> Jetii – Jedi (singular)  
> shebs – ass  
> osik- shit  
> vod – brother  
> vode – brothers  
> vod’ika – little brother


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some character tags have been added :) I hope you all enjoy!

Of course, when they pull into realspace over Demophon a few hours later, they come face to face with a fleet of several frigates and two light cruisers. Tano lets out a string of curses that Cody doesn’t even want to know who taught her.

“Who the hell are they, and why didn’t we know they were here?” Cody asks, pulling up the shields and switching his controls to the forward gun. “That’s a lot of ships for the middle of nowhere.”

“Sensors on this thing are junk,” Tano says, grim. “But there’s nothing in this part of the Hydian, there shouldn’t be anyone here.”

“They’re hailing us,” Rex says.

“Ar-Six, set a course for Denon, now – if we buy some time and stick to the fastest part of the Hydian we can lose them,” Tano says, and then nods at Rex to answer the call.

The comm springs to life. “Freighter, you are unauthorized to be in this airspace. State your name, business and registration number.”

“This is light freighter _Jaig Wings_ , we are delivering foodstuffs to the planet’s surface.”

“ _Jaig Wings,_ state your registration number and prepare for inspection.”

Tano rattles off a series of numbers that must mean _something_ , but their new friends don’t agree.

“I cannot find any record of this registration number. We will have to perform an in-depth inspection.”

“Sorry about that, officer, I’ll look for the one that’s up to date, please hold,” Tano says, and then turns off the comm. “Ar-Six, how are we doing?”

The droid beeps, and the ship goes unnaturally still. The stillness that comes with being caught in a tractor beam.

The droid beeps more shrilly.

“Two minutes, and we don’t have enough power to compensate,” Tano translates for Ar-Six, and then dives for the mess of wiring under the control board that maintains engine safety, swearing.

Rex meets Cody’s eyes.

“Turret. I’ve got the forwards,” Cody says, and Rex nods, sprinting out.

“Stang. Need more power,” Tano mutters. “Ar-Six, keep that route in.”

There are a few starfighters meandering over. “I think it’s time to start shooting, Commander,” Cody says calmly, concentration narrowing the way it always does in the breath before a battle. “Might at least throw them a bit.”

“Do it.”

“Yes, sir,” Cody says, and fires a warning shot that does kark-all to deter the ships.

The comm buzzes to life again. “Freighter _Jaig Wings_ , stand down! Repeat, stand down!”

Cody shuts down the external comm, and fires two more shots, these on target. “No can do,” he says, swapping to internal comms. “Rex, we’re live.”

“Roger, roger,” says Rex, because his sense of humor has always been awful, and starts laying down more fire.

Unfortunately, so do the starfighters. And there’s more of them popping up, although they seem like they aren’t as well-constructed – half Cody’s shots make them go supercritical, even though he knows he isn’t good enough to only be hitting engines. No time to question it now.

But the fighters keep coming, emerging in perfect sets of three from the light cruisers, which must have been retrofitted somehow. At the first hit their own shields take, Tano swears again in a language Cody doesn’t know, but has heard Obi-Wan use. She starts ripping into the wiring faster, and Cody and Rex keep knocking out ships.

“Hey, the shields aren’t good enough to take this _osik_!” calls Rex over the comm, and then devolves into cursing. “Turret gun’s out. I’m coming back up.”

Tano bangs on something in the controls. “Cody, status update.”

No gun, minimal shields, and not enough juice to break out of the tractor beam. In other words, they’re karked. “We’re definitely outgunned, Commander,” Cody says instead of saying so, and fights back a wince at the deep thud of ship-to-ship contact. “And it sounds like someone just latched on.”

He’s going to be one pissed-off ghost if he dies here. He has a lot of unfinished business.

“Any good news?” Rex asks, appearing in the doorway.

“We should have power,” Tano says tightly, moving back to the pilot’s seat. Ar-Six beeps. “I’ve reconfigured the converters, Ar-Six thinks we’ll be able to break free.”

“Take the other forward gun, it should be operational,” Cody tells Rex.

Rex drops into the seat and starts firing, picking off starfighters. There are probably _vode_ in those fighters, Cody thinks, and then brutally pushes down the thought. If he lets himself think that way here and now, they’ll all pay for it.

For a while there’s no sound but Tano’s quiet pleading with the engines, and then a huge form bursts into the cockpit, laughing wildly and carrying two unconscious troopers.

Cody blinks, but Rex beats him to the question. “Wrecker?” Rex asks, then curses and grabs his chair when Tano finally bursts out of the beam with some Skywalker flying and a victorious shout.

Cody, registering the non-threat, goes back to the guns.

“Captain Rex!” Wrecker calls, cheerful. “Or just Rex, I guess. We got Cody’s message and didn’t have anything better to do, so we’re here as backup to get you out of this mess. Sarge and the rest are back on the _Marauder,_ they dropped us off after we got some shots in and scrambled the tractor beam. Crosshair was sniping for you. They’ll follow us when we jump.”

“Who the kriff are you?” Tano asks, looking like she’s about to pull a lightsaber while flying.

“Friendlies,” Cody assures her, staying focused on the viewscreen. “They’re our backup.”

“ _You’re_ the Bad Batch?” Tano says. “You picked a hell of a time to show up.”

Another man slinks over next to Cody, but he can only spare a short glance to confirm what his instincts are telling him. “If you’d given us more warning, we could have told you not to use this route,” says Crosshair, with clinical detachment. “This part of the Hydian is crawling with ships going back and forth from Kuat.”

“Well, you know how it is, Crosshair,” Cody says, distracted by the fighters still on their tail. “End of the Republic and all that kept me a bit busy. Didn’t have a lot of time to pass along the details.”

“Oh, get out of the way,” Crosshair says, and pushes him out of the gunner’s seat to take it over. Cody goes willingly, drawing his blaster instead.

“Wrecker, anyone else make it on? Hostiles?”

Wrecker pulls a face, hefting the two unconscious men. “Nah, we picked these up earlier. It’s a long story. We’re the only extras onboard,” he says, and then amends, “The only awake extras.”

Cody puts away the blaster. “Heading?”

“Uquine’s second moon,” Crosshair says, still picking off ships one by one. “It’ll be safer than the Core.”

“Fine,” Tano says. “Do it, Ar-Six.”

The droid beeps, and it’s only moments before they finally hit hyperspace.

-

Cody lets himself breathe a little easier when they lurch into realspace a couple hours later and nobody is immediately shooting at them. The coordinates they land at are blissfully empty of military traffic – except a familiar gunship, which moves to lock itself to their little freighter.

“Looks like they beat us here,” Cody says.

Crosshair scoffs. “Was there ever any doubt?”

Rex tilts his head. “You got rid of the nose art.” 

“Well, it wasn’t exactly subtle, was it?”

“What was the art?” Tano asks.

Rex goes crimson. Cody doesn’t bother helping him. “It was, uh,” Rex tries. “It wasn’t very appropriate, to tell the truth.”

“What he means is it was—” Crosshair begins with relish, but stumbles and shuts up when Cody gives him a firm push out the door and down towards the airlock, Rex following with a sigh of relief.

“She’s an adult,” Crosshair says. “Why not tell her? If Senator Amidala had hated the art, she would have refused Hunter when he asked permission.”

Wrecker shakes his head. “Don’t be a jerk, Crosshair. Don’t you get it? If Skywalker was her brother, that would make Amidala her sister.”

Crosshair looks away. “Oh, very well,” he agrees. “You soft hearts.”

“She was raised a Jedi and she’s only seventeen standard, let her be,” Rex says, frowning. “She already lost her entire life once and now she can never go back, and she hasn’t even taken the time to grieve.”

“We’re fourteen standard, Captain,” Crosshair replies bitterly. “And how much have we lost? Have you or Cody here taken the time to grieve? No, because we don’t have that kind of luxury. Neither does she. If you or I or Tano or any of us stop, we’re dead. If any of the remaining Jedi who aren’t in deep hiding stop, they’re dead. A soft heart that keeps you from moving gets you _dead_ in the middle of a war, and the galaxy just became one huge battlefield.”

Rex looks as if he’s gearing up to yell at the man but the airlock opens, disrupting the brewing argument, and Hunter steps through carrying yet another trooper in white armor. Crosshair scowls even harder and Wrecker grins.

Cody raises an eyebrow. “Should I even ask how many bodies you have stored in there, Hunter?” he asks.

“Hello to you too, Cody, thanks for asking after our health. Nice to see you again, and in one piece this time,” Hunter says. “And you’re welcome, by the way. We had to light out real quick to catch you in time.”

“We would have been fine getting to a different rendezvous.”

“I don’t think they would have been fine, Sarge,” Wrecker says loyally, shifting his grip on the clones that Cody and Rex have been unable to convince him to put down since he got onboard.

“Thanks, Wrecker.”

“We need to get all these men to the medbay,” Cody says instead of responding, looking from Wrecker’s two to Hunter’s one. “And figure out how to restrain them. I don’t want to keep hitting them with stun, and we don’t have the medical supplies to keep them all sedated long enough to take their chips out.”

“Or the space on the ship,” Rex adds.

Hunter smirks. “Luckily for you, we brought our own reinforcements,” he says, and steps aside to reveal two faces Cody didn’t expect to see ever again.

Rex had been right, Cody thinks, momentarily dazed. The Empire hadn’t done a very thorough job at extermination at all.

“Commander Cody of the 2-1-2!” Quinlan Vos says brightly. “Great to see you again. I want you to know that I did get Obi-Wan’s message when the 99 pulled me out of Boz Pity. But then I thought, I’ve been doing the opposite of what Obi-Wan tells me for years. Why start taking his advice now? Also, I heard there might be a nascent uprising in it for me, which is always fun.”

Asajj Ventress, very much not as dead as expected, rolls her eyes. “I’m here to make sure he doesn’t die,” she says. She nods at Cody and Rex. “Commander, Captain.”

“General Vos, and Ventress,” Cody says, slightly wary of taking his hand off his blaster. Obi-Wan had said Ventress was no longer trying to kill them, but they had spent two years on opposite sides, and Cody knows a predator when he sees one.

“Oh, don’t worry, Commander,” Ventress says, noticing. “We’re on the same side now, so long as nobody on this ridiculous boat full of do-gooders is trying to kill Vos.”

Vos grins at her. “I love it when you threaten people for me, Asajj.”

Ventress graces him with the barest hint of a genuine smile.

Cody blinks. Well, he hadn’t known that happened. He wonders if Obi-Wan had – he’d said he and Vos had been close as younglings. He glances over at Rex, but he seems equally poleaxed. Hunter and Wrecker look positively delighted, and Crosshair’s expression has gone even more sour.

“Is Tano here, Commander?” Ventress asks.

“I’m just Cody now, and he’s just Rex,” he says, then pauses. He may as well tell her. “And yeah, she’s piloting.”

Rex won’t like it, but if Tano could handle Maul, she can handle Ventress. Besides, the ship’s not big enough to hide anyone.

“Hm. Well, just Cody and just Rex, you’ll have to excuse me. I’m going to go find Tano,” Ventress says, closing her eyes briefly and then pushing past them. “I think she has something of mine.”

“Try not to maim anyone, Asajj,” Vos calls.

“No promises, my dear,” she replies, waving a hand.

Rex starts after her, but Cody puts a restraining hand on his shoulder. “She’s on our side, and she helped Tano before.”

Rex grimaces, but nods.

Crosshair catches Cody’s eye. “They’re always like that,” he says.

“You’ve only known us for a ten-day, Crosshair,” Vos says. “I, personally, can get much worse.”

Cody turns to him, contemplating. Vos looks evenly back.

The more people know a secret, the more worthless it is, and they have too many people now to maintain any semblance of safety trying to sneak onto Alderaan and find wherever Senator Organa has made his base. The Senator may not be the type to shoot first, but anyone can act drastically if they feel backed into a corner. Two renegade clones and one Jedi was pushing it, but Cody doesn’t think the Senator will take it well if at least six defective clones and three Jedi – or whatever Ventress is – show up unannounced.

Cody wouldn’t, if he were hiding a Jedi youngling in plain sight, and there’s no way that isn’t what this is.

They could split up, but with no schedule and no destination that’s asking for trouble. He’d thought maybe Echo and Tech could put them through directly to Alderaan, but having Vos and Ventress changes things.

He exhales slowly. He hates taking shots in the dark, and it feels like that’s all he’s been doing since Rex and Tano woke him up. But there’s nothing else he can do. “General, did you ever work with Senator Organa? Would he know you?” he asks.

“Not a General anymore. And not officially,” Vos says, gaze sharpening. “But yeah, he’d probably know me.”

From what Obi-Wan had mentioned about Jedi Shadows, it _wouldn’t_ be official. Vos had spent most of the war in and out of hot zones behind enemy lines, and had disappeared altogether for a stint before resurfacing in some sort of complicated standoff with Dooku. Obi-Wan hadn’t explained anything about it, but Cody had been handling a lot of sensitive intel by then and the timing coincided neatly with one of Obi-Wan’s bouts of particular recklessness.

Vos had only been pulled into the Outer Rim Sieges at the very end, when things felt close enough to finish with one solid final push from an increased Jedi field presence.

Of course, now Cody knows that must have been the Chancellor making sure that all his pieces would be in position for his final victory. He has to consciously unclench his jaw at the thought.

“What are you thinking, _vod_?” Rex asks.

“I know that look,” Hunter says. “It doesn’t say anything good.”

Vos is still just looking at him.

“We were told that Senator Organa would be in the thick of any anti-Empire activities,” Cody says to Vos. “And that he may have knowledge and advice about other survivors of the kill order. If an uprising is what you’re looking for, he’s currently our best bet. He’ll probably be on-planet, but it’s unlikely that we’d make it to the surface. Alderaan’s a peaceful planet, but its orbital defenses are fully capable of blowing us out of the sky, and what military infrastructure there is will be on high alert because the Queen and the Senator just adopted a baby girl.”

“A baby girl who we think is a Skywalker,” Rex adds.

If Vos is surprised, he doesn’t show it. “Dex is still up to his old tricks, I see. I was never close to Organa, but he did always seem like a guy with a weirdly strong moral compass, for a politician.”

“We’ll have to hope so. Can you convince him to meet us off-planet?”

“If you get me a line in, probably,” Vos says, shrugging.

Cody looks to Hunter, who clucks his tongue and shakes his head sadly. “You need us to do everything around here,” he says. “How’d you make it on your own for so many days?”

Cody crosses his arms. “My slicing’s not good enough to get past Alderaanian royal firewalls, but my aim is just fine.”

“I’ll go relieve Echo from the pilot’s seat, shall I,” Crosshair says, not making it a question before he goes through the lock.

“I’ll find Tech,” Wrecker says, and follows.

“Echo’s piloting? You let Echo pilot?” Rex says, catching up and following Crosshair.

Cody lets him go this time. It’ll do him good to see Echo again.

“Relax, Captain,” he hears Crosshair tell Rex. “We’re not even moving at the moment.”

Hunter sighs, and follows.

Cody turns back to find Vos studying him. Cody’s glad he broke the habit of shifting on his feet like a shiny. He squares his shoulders and meets the Jedi’s eyes.

“Thanks for keeping him alive,” Vos says at last.

 _A Shadow is better trained in knowing what to say, and more importantly what_ not _to say, than any diplomat_ , Obi-Wan had told him, even before Teth. _Regardless of Quinlan’s reputation, he is very, very good at his job._

Cody swallows. He has to say it, doesn’t he? He just has to keep saying it to all these people who mean well but don’t have to live with the memory inside their heads. Who didn’t see their own hands picking up their blaster, didn’t hear their own voice giving the order. “I didn’t, in the end,” he says. “I followed the order. I had my men shoot at him.”

“That wasn’t you,” Vos says. He’s still looking at Cody like he’s learning everything about him from his face.

Karking Jedi, Cody thinks.

“That wasn’t you,” Vos says again, and continues. “And I would know. When I gave over to the Dark – yeah, that’s why I disappeared – I was still myself. I knew what I was doing, I just didn’t care, because I thought I could reach a worthy end goal. I made terrible decisions that got a lot of good people killed, but I was the one making those decisions. I had agency the entire time. Those men we captured, your brothers?” Vos shakes his head. “It’s not the same. You didn’t choose it. You couldn’t fight it. You couldn’t walk away from something that someone else implanted in your brain before you even existed. I felt it, when those men changed over. It was like they were suddenly blank. _Gone._ ”

Cody’s throat hurts again. “Sir,” he manages.

“It’s just Vos,” says Vos. “And what I’m saying is, thank you for keeping him alive long enough to survive when you weren’t there to protect him.”

“I failed him.” He feels like a broken holo, stuck repeating the same thing.

“You can take that up with Kenobi when we find him,” Vos says. “But I’m pretty sure he’ll disagree.”

He shouldn’t, Cody thinks, then shuts down the thought. He doesn’t have time to think about this again.

“Sir,” he says again. “If you could ask Organa to meet us somewhere with a medbay, that would be useful for breaking the chips in the men that the Batch brought onboard.”

Vos allows the redirect. “Just think about it, Commander. And incidentally, the Batchers brought me _,_ and I brought those men. They were the ones briefing me on Boz Pity when the order came down. I’ll be sure to ask for the best medical care the royal treasury can provide on whatever abandoned outpost he’s sure to send us to,” he says lightly, turning to the airlock just before Hunter comes back through with Tech, Rex, and Echo in his wake.

Rex and Echo are clinging to each other and laughing like a pair of cadets. Good. Cody’s sure Echo will be glad to see Tano again, too – she’d been on the mission where they lost him.

They deserve to scrape back a bit of happiness from the galaxy.

“Cody! It’s good to see you,” Echo says. He looks much better than he did after Skako, but Cody supposes that wouldn’t take much, after being half-starved in a stasis pod for over a year.

“You too, Echo,” he says, clasping the man’s organic arm. “I hope Hunter hasn’t been running you into the ground.”

Hunter gives an offended squawk, and Tech puts a hand over his mouth. “No more than usual,” Tech says. “You know, fall of the Republic, chaos in the Outer Rim, death and destruction of everything any of us held dear. It’s just work, work, work for us in the 99. On the bright side, thanks to Echo, we didn’t become vegetables when the order came down. What am I slicing for you, Cody?”

“A line to Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan,” Cody says, ignoring the rest. “He’s on-planet and probably at one of the Queen’s residences, but we don’t know which, and he’s probably got at least royal and Senate security layers on all his comms, and whatever else from his own agents. His Senate comms might be separate, given that the Senate is now run by the Emperor. We need five minutes of the Senator’s time on a channel secure enough that the best infosec in the galaxy, which I’m assuming Palpatine will be paying for, won’t be able to get in.”

Tech grins. “So nothing too difficult. Regular day, that,” he says.

“Sure, Tech,” Cody says, bone-dry. “Would I give you an impossible task?”

Hunter squints at him. “Yes,” he says.

“Oh, absolutely,” Tech says.

Echo shrugs. “What else are we here for but impossible tasks?”

“Don’t be like that, Echo,” Rex says. “I’m sure if you asked nicely, Cody could come up with something worse.”

“Please don’t,” Tech says. “All right, Commander. Point me at a terminal, and lend Echo your astromech.”

-

Between Tech, Echo, and Ar-Six, they make quick work of it, and Organa’s on the line before latemeal. Cody and Vos coopt the cramped central room on the _Marauder_.

To his credit, the Senator only tenses up a little bit when he sees who’s calling from their end. Vos has covered up his tattoos and changed his inflection, but he’s not exactly unrecognizable.

“Senator, good to see you! This is Captain Jaro of the _Dush’kara_. I have the medical shipment you ordered from Obroa-skai, with an ETA of about six hours,” Vos says.

Cody startles a little at the unexpected Mando’a, and Vos gives him a sidelong look. “People always act like Ben is the only one allowed to speak other languages,” the Jedi grumbles under his breath, too low for the holo to catch.

“It’s good to hear from you, Captain,” Organa says. “We didn’t expect you so early, and our landing pads are full. Run into any trouble on the way?”

“No trouble I couldn’t handle, but a couple of my men got pretty scraped up, so if you have a med-droid you can send with the pickup, we’d appreciate it.”

“Not a problem. I can transmit coordinates for a new drop point.” 

“Thanks, Senator,” Vos says. “Pleasure doing business, as always.”

“You’ve always been a reliable man, Captain,” Organa says, dry as dust. “My thanks for the supplies.”

He winks out, and Cody turns to Vos. “That’s it?” he asks.

“Well, we got the coordinates,” Vos says, brows furrowed as he looks at the numbers. “Which lead somewhere on Adari. And he got that I was alive, have men who need medical attention, and want him to come personally. What else do we need?”

What Cody and Rex had fumbled out between the two of them at Dex’s Diner was child’s play, Cody thinks. Still, he has one outstanding question. “How do we stop him from shooting us when you walk through the door with a clone and Ventress at your back?”

“At least three clones, and Asajj, and Tano,” Vos corrects him. “Hunter has to come for the Batch since you’re going to foist them on the royal family to make sure the Skywalker-Amidala kid grows up with some truly terrifying uncles, Rex has to come for Tano, and Tano has to come for you. And for herself, and for Obi-Wan. Asajj will come because she doesn’t trust any of us.” He grins. “Three clones, three Force-users, and a Senator walk into a bar to plan a rebellion. I don’t think I’ve heard this one.”

“It won’t be a bar,” Cody says flatly. “You didn’t answer my question. And I haven’t asked the 99 to do anything, yet.”

Vos fixes him with a look. “You think they’re the type to ignore a righteous cause just sitting in front of them? We both know they aren’t. And don’t worry too much about getting shot, Commander. Organa’s a smart guy – once he notices that you aren’t trying to kill me or Tano, he’ll put the pieces together quick enough.”

At least Vos hasn’t said that the Force will be with them. Obi-Wan had always said that with a perfectly innocent expression that was specifically calculated to needle Cody.

But still, they’ll be bringing a lot of people into a situation with too many unknown unknowns for Cody’s peace of mind, even if Organa himself is friendly. It’s too close to some of Skywalker’s desperate just-wing-it-and-hope wartime plans for him to be comfortable with it.

“General – Vos, I’m more worried about the guards he’s bound to have.”

“Cody,” Vos says, pulling him up short. “There won’t be a firefight. Organa isn’t the type, even in a crisis where you don’t know who your friends are. _Especially_ in a crisis like that. He doesn’t hire people who are. Nobody’s gonna shoot anyone.” He puts a hand on Cody’s shoulder. “You won’t be responsible for any more unjust deaths.”

Cody looks away, caught out. “Yes, sir,” he says.

“Cut it out with the ‘sir’ poodoo,” Vos says. “Obi-Wan’ll have my head if he thinks I made you call me that. Also, I was never meant to be a general, even if they called me one at the end.”

The corner of Cody’s mouth twitches upward. “Yes, sir,” he repeats.

Vos rolls his eyes. “You deserve each other. Let’s go find the others.”

-

By the time they get to a nice hiding spot behind Adari’s moon, Hunter has finally managed to convince Wrecker to put down the men he’s been hauling around in what passes for a medbay in their little freighter.

Cody knows he won’t be able to relax his guard until they’re in Alderaanian care with a real med-droid, and not the one Tano and Rex had been desperate enough to use on him with judicious application of the Force.

Vos had said he was no healer, but he’d put all three troopers under. Hopefully it’ll last them until the meet time on Adari. Until then, they’re on rotating watch in the medbay.

Cody’s always thought it looked a little strange from the outside, when troops got put to sleep with the Force. Obi-Wan had explained it as not really a coma, but deeper than sleep – but the one time Obi-Wan had done it to him, after a real kark-up near Bothawui, he’d woken up easily, with the clearest sensation of floating in a cool river.

 _I’m sorry, Cody_ , Obi-Wan had said, _I don’t have that much experience with this, so it may be unpleasant, but unfortunately I’m your best bet until Flask arrives. No, don’t look at me like that. You are not expendable, not to me. Nu gar kyr’adyc, Kote, ni n’duumi ibic. Ke nuhoyir. Ni cabu gar._

Cody had given his mind to Obi-Wan without question, with the absolute certainty that he would be in safe hands.

“Do you know what their names are?” he asks Hunter.

Hunter shakes his head. “No. Vos might, but he said they’d only just met and he had to knock them out when the order came down. You know we never worked with Jedi much, but I’d love a holo of how that went down.”

“From what Rex says, Commander Tano managed to escape twenty men shooting at her in a room with one blocked exit by cutting through the ceiling,” Cody says. “Jedi are – you get used to them. Sort of.”

Hunter eyes him. “I’ll say.”

“Don’t,” Cody says sharply.

Hunter raises his hands, appeasing. “Skywalker was definitely more useful than you were in that _osik_ with the Techno Union, that’s for sure.”

Skywalker was a Jedi. He was probably more useful than Cody right up until he died for it.

Hunter is still talking. “But it’s good Vos knocked them out and didn’t just kill them. I don’t think I would have been so merciful if some brothers I’d only just met started shooting at me.”

“You’re not a Jedi. We weren’t built like them.”

“Vos is only sort of a Jedi,” Hunter points out. “He told me he was going to quit, after the war.”

“I’ve been reliably informed you can never really quit being a Jedi, even if you can leave the Jedi Order. And the Jedi Order doesn’t really exist anymore, anyway.” Cody pauses, then continues, softer. “You’re calling them brothers, now. Not ‘regs.’”

Hunter looks away. “Yeah, well. The galaxy shifts overnight and suddenly it turns out some things don’t matter a whole hell of a lot, in retrospect. _Vode an_ _,_ and all that.”

“ _Vode an_ ,” Cody echoes, raising an eyebrow.

Hunter musters up a faint grin. “You know, even Crosshair slipped up and called Echo _'vod'_ the other day.”

“Echo is loveable,” Cody says. “I’ll bet ten creds Crosshair will never call any of the rest of you anything even close.”

“Sucker bet, no thanks.”

Rex comes in to relieve them, with Wrecker, Echo, and Tano trailing.

“Crosshair kicked me out of the pilot’s seat,” Tano says to Cody, mournful. “Your friends don’t like me.”

This sounds suspiciously familiar, Cody thinks. “What did you do?” he asks.

“I didn’t _do_ anything,” Tano claims. “I may have implied that I _could_ do a Sriluurian triple loop even in this bucket of bolts. He overreacted.”

That’s Skywalker’s influence, all right. Cody fights a smile, because there’s no use rewarding bad behavior, even if some part of him is glad she still gets to be a kid. Sort of. A Jedi kid, so a heavily traumatized kid capable of doing immense damage in a very short timeframe.

Any sane brother’s nightmare, in other words.

“Sounds like he underreacted,” Hunter says. “Just don’t try to do that in ours.”

“I could do it in yours,” Tano says, considering. “Your ship is lighter.”

Rex groans.

Wrecker laughs. “I like my stomach where it is, Commander.”

“Yes, please don’t,” Echo says. “Come on, Cody, Sarge. We’re detaching, the meet is in an hour.”

“Roger, roger,” Hunter says, heaving himself up and offering Cody a hand before following Echo out the door.

Cody puts a hand on Rex’s shoulder. “Check with Echo about a spare bucket before we go. It won’t be yours, but it won’t be nothing.”

Rex nods. “Good thinking. Now get out of here.”

Cody kicks him lightly in the ankle, but goes to catch up with Hunter in the hall.

“You gonna get rid of that junk heap when we get to where we’re going?” Cody asks, eyeing the _Havoc Marauder_ through the viewports as they walk. It’s certainly seen better days, but Rex and Tano’s freighter’s probably in worse shape.

“May as well keep it. I’m attached, and who would recognize it as ours, besides you and a bunch of men who don’t know their own names anymore? Had to get rid of the nose art, though, after everything went to hell,” Hunter says, then grimaces. “Seemed in bad taste.”

“We were all sorry to hear about Senator Amidala,” Echo says. “I remember she and General Skywalker were – close.”

“Close is one word for it,” Hunter says.

Tano wrinkles her nose. “That’s my Master you’re talking about.”

Cody hears voices carrying down the hall and pauses, letting Tano and the others walk ahead. He glances back, wondering at how quickly he became fine with having Asajj Ventress at his back. Maybe he’s just gotten used to everything changing at breakneck pace, and mostly for the worse.

“You seem happy for a man walking right into another war,” Ventress is saying.

“You know I’m not meant for sitting still.”

Ventress doesn’t reply for a beat.

“Asajj,” Vos says. “I know that if we start down this path, there’s no going back. You sure you want to do this? You don’t have to. Even for me. You definitely don’t have to for me.”

“No, I don’t have to,” Ventress says, frank. “But I know who I am, and who I’m not, not anymore. I can hardly let you go without me.”

The moment is a private one. Cody looks away and keeps walking, missing Obi-Wan with fierce desperation.

He knows it won’t be like that ever again, for him. It can’t be so easy. He can never undo what’s been done, can’t go back and rewrite the worst day of his life.

But if he can see Obi-Wan in person just once more, just to know he’s breathing still – if he can offer again the protection he’d failed to carry through – then he thinks he could learn to survive without the forgiveness that he doesn’t deserve.

It’ll hurt, but he’s fought with broken limbs before.

-

(“Don’t you dare, General,” Cody grits out, feeling the General try to move. “You’ll make it worse.”

“Oh, do call me Obi-Wan,” General Kenobi says, as if he’s not bleeding all over Cody. As if he hadn’t pushed Cody out of the way with the Force, even though Cody is the expendable one and he isn’t. There are literal millions of Cody. There’s only one Obi-Wan Kenobi. “You and I both know I’ll bleed out in less than an hour if Anakin doesn’t find us, maybe close to three if I put myself into a superficial healing trance to really slow the blood loss. I’d rather not stand on ceremony if I’m going to die in your arms in this Force-forsaken rubble.”

“You are _not_ dying here,” Cody insists. “Kix and Flask are coming, and between the two of them they can fix anyone. Put yourself in a healing trance.”

“Cody,” the General says, kindly. Maddeningly. Cody oscillates between wanting to punch him and wanting to wrap him in blankets and stow him somewhere safe. “We’re buried under twelve stories of a building. The likelihood of either of us surviving long enough for rescue is low, and the likelihood of me surviving with this wound is even lower. One of us has to deliver the mission report. We should go over it while we can, hm?”

“General, I don’t think you understand how much I do not give a kark about the mission report right now. Sir. Put yourself under, I’ll keep watch.”

“Wouldn’t you rather spend the time talking?” General Kenobi asks, trying for a wobbly smile.

“I’d rather you live,” Cody says. If he had less willpower, he would have shouted the words.

“Cody,” the General repeats, placating. “The Force takes us all back in its time. I’m not afraid of facing my own death, especially not with a friend at my side.”

Cody sees red, and this time he can’t stop himself. “ _I’m_ afraid of facing your death! I’ve done it before, and I’m not doing it again!” he shouts, and then immediately wishes the earth would swallow him whole.

Well, that cans it. Once the General survives this, he’ll ask Cody to hand in his transfer request. Cody closes his eyes for a moment and levels out his breathing.

The General just blinks at him slowly. “Oh,” he says. “I see.”

Cody doesn’t think he does, but he clenches his teeth and doesn’t say anything.

“Do you know, I can feel your emotions right now? I would never usually presume, but my shields are almost gone, and you’re being a bit loud,” General Kenobi says.

Kark. Cody ducks his head, and wrestles down the fear-dread-nausea, puts it behind the mental walls Jango had taught them all to build. He’s a Marshal Commander, for kriff’s sake. Bad enough that he lost control out loud and yelled at his CO. He can’t go losing it in his own head.

“Thank you.”

“Of course, General,” Cody says.

“Obi-Wan, Cody.”

Maybe they can both just ignore it forever, Cody thinks. His thoughts keep catching on the General’s increasingly-ragged inhales.

“The mission report?” General Kenobi says after a few precious minutes where they’re just breathing together, because he wants to drive Cody insane.

“General, it can wait. Put yourself in a healing trance,” Cody says, and then, out of sheer desperation, “ _Obi-Wan_. Please, for me.”

Obi-Wan lets out a soundless sigh. “All right,” he says. “All right, Cody, I will. Wake me up in two hours’ time if nobody comes for us.”

“Yes, sir,” Cody agrees. He would have agreed to eat gravel if he’d thought it would persuade the man.

Obi-Wan gives him a long, level look, as if trying to memorize his face. Who knows why, Cody thinks, only a little hysterical. Obi-Wan sees hundreds of men with his face every day.

“I’ll see you when I wake up, Commander,” Obi-Wan says.

Cody nods, heart in his throat blocking all the remaining words that want to come out. Obi-Wan closes his eyes.

Ninety-seven minutes into his watch, light breaks through into their bubble. General Skywalker and Commander Tano are peering down at them, and Cody lets himself exhale once and once only, before waving up at them.

“General, Commander! The General needs a medic, now!” he calls.

Obi-Wan stirs faintly, but Cody squeezes his shoulder and he goes still again, relaxing into Cody’s grip while Skywalker and Tano organize a medevac.

Nobody is dying in the rubble today. Especially not Obi-Wan.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jaro – reckless  
> dush’kara – bad star/bad luck (In effect, Vos is saying "This is Captain Reckless of the Bad Star/Bad Luck.")  
> Nu gar kyr’adyc, Kote, ni n’duumi ibic. – You can’t die, Cody, I won’t allow it.  
> Ke nuhoyir. Ni cabu gar. – Sleep. I’ll protect you.  
> osik – shit  
> vod – brother  
> vode – brothers  
> Vode An – “Brothers All” (Mandalorian war chant)
> 
> In case anyone is curious, the Havoc Marauder and its Padme-as-a-pinup-girl nose art were canon to the original screen test, although the nose art was erased for the final cut of the Bad Batch arc.


	4. Chapter 4

Adari is – cold, and covered in a fine powder of light blue snow. They land at the coordinates Senator Organa had given them, and Cody’s grateful for his thermals the instant they step outside. Vos groans while Hunter sets off due east towards a small rise, Tano at his heels.

“Let’s hope the Senator’s got heating,” Vos says. “Or we’ll freeze to death and miss the revolution.”

“Poor baby,” Ventress says, unsympathetic. “Use the Force. Or start wearing sleeves.”

Vos shakes his head, forlorn. “No sympathy from the light of my life.”

“I can still tie you up and leave you somewhere.”

“Promises, promises, Asajj,” Vos says, leering.

Rex and Cody share a pained glance. As a show of trust, they’d agreed to hold their helmets and not wear them, but Cody’s really wishing for a private comm right about now.

“It’s here!” Tano calls from a few hundred paces away, where she and Hunter have ended up.

Rex knocks their shoulders together as they walk. “Chin up, Codes,” he says, and nods at Vos and Ventress. “Imagine having to deal with Skywalker and Amidala on every shore leave.”

“I did imagine it,” Cody says. “That’s why I got the 501st assigned to you.”

“The war made you meaner,” Rex accuses.

“I was already the meanest one in my batch.”

Tano shushes them, since they’re close, now.

“There’s voices further into the hill,” Hunter says. “But I think you and Cody better lead, Vos.”

“On it,” Vos says. “You all stay just inside and out of the wind, and wait for our signal. You’ll stick out in a landscape like this no matter how safe the planet is, but we shouldn’t surprise the Senator with too much at once.”

A series of nods, and Vos waves the door open and passes through. Beyond it, there’s just an empty hallway with a lit doorway at the other end. Cody can pick up the low voices that must have been clear as day to Hunter.

Several blasters are instantly pointed their way when they walk into the room at the end of the hall. Vos sighs, but puts his hands up, Cody following suit. He counts three humanoid women with weapons, an astromech, and a man with his back to them, watching a holomap of the galaxy rotate.

The women all have similar builds and features – Senator Amidala’s build, if he’s not mistaken. If these aren’t her former handmaidens, he’ll eat his bucket.

“Ladies,” Vos says. “I thought we were on better terms than that.”

“These are dark days, _Captain_ ,” one of the handmaidens says.

Senator Organa turns to face them, smiling genially. “Welcome to Adari,” he says, eyes flicking over both of them in the kind of once-over Cody’s seen experienced field commanders give returning troops. Hell, he’s _given_ once-overs like that. He wonders how a Senator picked up the habit.

Organa inclines his head, and says, “Saché, Dormé, Moteé, please stand down.”

Vos bows. “Our thanks, Senator. Just so you know, we brought you some interesting people to meet,” Vos says. “From what I’ve heard, I have a feeling you’re going to have a pretty big target on your back in the next few years.”

“None that I didn’t put there myself,” Organa says warmly. “And none that I wouldn’t choose again. It’s good to see you, General. Trooper, I don’t know your name but I cannot help but notice that you aren’t trying to kill General Vos, so I’ll assume you’re not with the Emperor.”

“I am not, sir,” Cody says wryly. “And my name is Cody.”

Organa’s eyes widen slightly. “Commander Cody of the 212th?”

“That’s the one,” Vos says. “Yeah, those biochips that the Council thought inhibited aggression? Turns out they were mind-control chips. I was close enough and focused enough to feel my men go completely blank in the Force. None of them had any choice when they opened fire.”

Organa bows his head and says nothing for a long moment, although his lips look like they’re moving. “That is dark news indeed,” he says at last, meeting Vos’ eyes. “I did not know.”

“It’s an abomination,” Vos says bluntly. “Wiping someone’s mind, taking away who they are and forcing their body to do things they would never do – it’s evil.”

“Yes, it is,” Organa says, and looks to Cody. “I am sorry, Commander, for what little it’s worth now. What was done to you was unforgivable, and the Senate was complicit in it. We should have worked harder to get more information on the nature of the chips, and you and your brothers continue to suffer for that failure.”

“Sir,” Cody says, awkward in the face of such earnestness. He straightens his shoulders. “You know most of my brothers are still trying to kill Jedi, and anyone who aids Jedi.”

Organa’s just another soft heart, Crosshair would have said.

“I’m willing to take General Vos at his word,” Organa says. “If he says that isn’t them, then that isn’t them. They are victims of a tyrant’s lust for power, just as the Jedi were.”

“Sir,” Cody repeats uselessly.

Organa takes pity on him. “To business, then. Who have you brought along?”

“Oh,” Vos says. “Just some old friends.” 

He goes into the hall and makes a gesture, and Tano, Rex, Hunter, and Ventress file in.

One of the handmaidens moves for a blaster upon seeing Ventress, but Organa waves her down and grins, unfazed. “Quite a few old friends,” he says. “And new ones. Welcome.”

“Hi, Senator,” Tano says, and then her features light up with recognition. “Artooie?”

The astromech beeps shrilly and rolls over to her, bumping into her knees. She laughs. “It’s good to see you too, buddy. I’m glad you got away safe.”

Of course – Cody hadn’t realized. It’s Skywalker’s droid. Ventress is eyeing it warily, like she remembers the mayhem it’s capable of.

R2-D2 gives a dejected series of beeps, and Tano bites her lip. “No, I don’t know what happened to him. But we can look for him together, how’s that?”

The droid makes a sound that Cody suspects is its equivalent of a sigh, and Tano laughs and pats its dome. “You ended up in good hands. Thanks for taking care of him, Senator.”

“He’s been very helpful,” Organa says, but doesn’t say how he ended up with the droid in the first place. If Tano makes note of it, she doesn’t ask.

Hunter nods at Organa. “Senator. Cody suggested you might have work for me and my squad. Ideally work that involves blowing things up, for Wrecker’s sake, but Tech is a specialist and Crosshair and Echo are an excellent protection detail, as you might remember. If you happen to need protection.”

“I seem to have new bodyguards volunteering at an alarming rate,” Organa says mildly, glancing back at the handmaidens. “Do I look so vulnerable?”

Rex clears his throat. “We heard about the adoption. Kids can get into all sorts of trouble,” he says, before belatedly adding, “Sir.”

“She’ll need someone else to build up her shields regularly until she’s old enough to protect herself,” Tano says, more direct. “Hiding in plain sight is good, but having a back-up plan is better. Especially a back-up plan with its own weapons.”

Organa flinches ever-so-slightly. “I suppose if there was anything unusual about my daughter that would put her in any danger, I would appreciate help in keeping her safe,” he says carefully.

“We can help with that,” Rex says, ghost of a smile crossing his face.

Tano grins outright. “Anything for family.”

“Speaking of which, we left some brothers on the ship who need their chips removed and a place to go to ground,” Hunter says. “We were hoping you could provide both.”

“This place doesn’t have advanced enough medical facilities for that kind of work,” Organa says, chagrined. “My apologies. It’s equipped with fundamentals for humanoids, but I didn’t realize you would need equipment for subatomic brain scans.”

“We got it done with a decades-old med-droid and the Force a few days ago,” Rex says.

Cody winces, even though he’d known that already. Rex had told him he’d barely had any headache at all when Tano took his chip out in the real medbay on the ship they’d taken from Mandalore, but Cody had felt a little like someone took a drill to his brain.

Tano shoots Cody an apologetic look. “We were in desperate circumstances and it was risky,” she says. “If they can wait for a proper med-droid, we should wait. I don’t like it either, but it’ll be safer in the long run.”

“In that case, we brought stasis field generators that should keep until we can get them to Alderaan,” Organa says. “I will ensure they get the best care possible there.”

Dormé and Moteé step forward. “Where are the men?” Dormé asks.

Hunter sighs, and steps forward. “I’ll take you back to the ship,” he says. “General Vos has been making sure they’re still under every few hours, so we’ve got a bit of time before they start waking up. Better to get them in stasis sooner than later.”

The two handmaidens nod in sync, and follow.

Vos claps his hands together. “So, what’s this about Kenobi and a revolution? I know some padawan habits are hard to kick, but the galaxy’s kind of a bigger scale than one little planet.”

Now that sounds like a story Cody hasn’t heard. By Tano’s fascinated look, he’s betting she doesn’t know either.

“Master Kenobi is—” Organa starts, then cuts himself off. Inexplicably, he glances at Cody before continuing. “Master Kenobi has taken on a critical long-term mission, and we plan to directly involve him only in situations of direst need.”

A long-term mission on his own? What could be so critical?

 _Jedi aren’t meant to be alone,_ Obi-Wan had told him once. _Some of us are just good at it by necessity._

“Where?” Vos asks.

Organa tilts his head. “The more people know his location, the less safe he will be.”

Vos smirks. “I don’t think you need to worry that he’s in any danger from us.”

“It’s not only him I’m worried about,” Organa says cryptically. “It is no exaggeration to say that the future depends on his mission being successful.”

“Sir,” Cody says. He’s not too proud to beg and he’ll swear any vows Organa likes, but he doesn’t think Organa will make him. “I – we – can help him.”

Organa regards him for several moments. “Tatooine,” he says finally.

Skywalker’s home planet, Cody remembers. He feels as if he keeps getting pieces of a picture that he can’t quite put together yet.

“There’s nothing on Tatooine but slavers and sand,” Ventress says. “What does it have to do with your revolution?”

“I don’t know who’s been calling it a revolution,” Organa replies, avoiding the question. “It most certainly isn’t one.”

“Yet,” Vos says.

The Senator snorts. “Yet,” he confirms. “So far, it’s hardly even an organized rebellion. But Palpatine cannot be allowed to remain in power. We must believe there are people out there who are willing to fight for what’s right.”

“Optimistic,” Ventress says. “What people? The public turned against the Jedi in an instant.”

Organa shakes his head. “The public can be misled through manipulation and propaganda, but it cannot be ruled by fear forever. The Emperor has overplayed his hand already. He’s consolidated an unprecedented amount of power to his own office, and upon declaring the Empire he promptly dismantled all the institutional checks on corruption in the Senate and the Ministry of Interplanetary Affairs. Not that there were many left after the years of war. He’s also given free rein to slavers and restructured the army, and he’s announced martial law on several planets in the Mid-Rim, edging close to the Core. It may be sustainable for months, even years – but not indefinitely.”

Tano frowns. “Martial law means he doesn’t think those planets can be controlled, or he wants to make examples,” she says slowly. “Martial law on planets close to the Core – there will be bloodshed. It doesn’t seem very efficient to control half the Core by terrorizing the other half.”

“Sith love chaos, violence, and power,” Vos says. “Fear gives him all three. I doubt he cares about being efficient.”

“Why encourage slavers?” Ventress asks, cutting through the rest and peering at Organa.

The Senator spreads his hands. “To codify a rot that has gone unaddressed since the formation of the Republic, I suppose.”

“He already has an army of brainwashed slaves at his beck and call,” Rex says, scowling. “Allowing it works out great for him. If Kamino won’t make him more, he can just buy them.”

Tano clenches a fist. “We need to get more men out. We can’t just leave them there.”

“Out of the now-Imperial army? Sounds like a fine way to die,” the remaining handmaiden says. Saché, Cody thinks.

“Sounds fun,” Vos says. “I’m in.”

Organa shakes his head. “I’m sorry to say it, but that can’t be the first priority. The new Empire will be on high alert. For now, we need to operate quietly and lull him into a sense of complacency.” He makes a face. “The way that the Republic was so complacent that we allowed ourselves to be led by our noses into a two-man con. Before we stage any stealth ops or rescue missions, we need to know our resources and capabilities. Extraction is too high-risk to rush into it quite yet.”

“He’s right,” Cody says reluctantly. “Our brothers will keep for now, and this isn’t going to be a quick fight. Getting killed trying to get an ARC or two out won’t help anyone in the long run.”

“Or it might help everyone in the long run,” Rex counters. “Fives was an ARC and he almost blew up Palpatine’s plan before it even happened.”

Cody grits his teeth. “It’s too risky to start now.”

“ _Ner vode, Kote,_ ” Rex says, low.

“I know!” Cody snarls. “You don’t think I know?”

There’s a charged silence for long moments before Tano puts a hand on each of their shoulders, and Cody makes himself back down, Rex doing the same. “We’ll get them out,” she says. “Like you said, this is going to be a long battle. We’ll save as many as we can, as soon as we know we can. I promise.”

“He’d already started to fill in the command ranks with nat-borns in the first week,” Cody says, a peace offering. “And we don’t know if any men figured it out on their own, like Fives. In a few months it’ll be easy enough for troops to start disappearing.”

“Fine,” Rex says. “But that’s going to be _my_ first priority. I don’t care if it takes years. I’ve lost too many brothers to wait around and lose more.”

Hunter and the other two handmaidens slip back in and assume their previous positions.

“It probably _will_ take years,” Vos says. “The Emperor planned this for decades – I’ve seen Palpatine’s official records, and there’s no way he isn’t at least thirty years older than he claims.”

“If it takes years, it takes years,” Organa says. “Better a long cold war and then a short hot one that we win than a long hot war that we lose. We must make ready, not make haste.”

“The seeds we need are already there,” Vos says. “We just have to make sure they grow. The Jedi Order is gone, but we’re still here. The GAR is mind-controlled, but we can break the chips. ‘In time, a new hope will emerge.’” He smiles sharply. “Every tyrant has a weakness.”

“And the longer he’s in power, the more certain of his own infallibility he’ll be,” Ventress says. “The Dark is patient, but Sidious is overconfident.”

Rex nods. “We have to be ready to strike when the opportunity arises, whenever that is.”

“You’ll need allies who can go and begin recruiting and training more allies on the ground all across the galaxy,” Tano says. “A network. Intelligence, weapons, basic insurgency tactics.”

“Tano’s right, we’ll need spies and soldiers, and lots of both. And lots of both who can pretend they aren’t either,” says Vos. “Shadows.”

“There may also be groups that are already doing the recruiting work,” Cody says. “Which systems are likely to put up organized resistance to the Empire immediately? Which need a push?”

“Mandalore and Onderon weren’t with the Republic in the war, but I have contacts there,” Tano says.

Hunter crosses his arms. “I’ll do some digging, too. Between me and Crosshair, we’ve got a lot of favors just waiting to get cashed in.” He eyes Organa. “Especially if you have a base for us to work from.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Organa says. “Seeing as you’ve assigned yourselves guard duty.”

“I can find Hertal Nest and the Cloud-Riders on Savareen,” Vos says. “Pirates are going to be natural allies. At least, the trustworthy ones will be.”

“Just as long as it’s not Hondo Ohnaka,” Rex says.

Disturbingly, Vos looks like he’s seriously considering it for a moment, but then seems to discard the idea. “The trustworthy ones,” he repeats firmly. “If Ohnaka decides to turn over a new leaf, I’m sure he’ll find us.”

Tano grimaces. “Sorry, but I’m going to hope he doesn’t,” she says. “Maybe Master Kenobi would be able to convince him, but if I never see Hondo again, it’ll be too soon. He was a menace.”

“Master Kenobi can’t be part of laying this groundwork, including negotiating with pirates, unfortunately. He’s too valuable as a failsafe, and as I said, his most important mission has only just begun,” Organa says, shaking his head. “It’s too dangerous to pull him in regularly, even over comm. No matter how brilliant a tactician he is. We’ll just have to hope that between all of us we can do just as well.”

Cody clears his throat. It’s as good a time as there’s going to be. “Between all of you,” he corrects. “I’m going to Tatooine.” I’m staying on Tatooine, he doesn’t need to say. He doesn’t look at Rex – there’s no way Rex doesn’t already know.

The Senator eyes him. “And if Master Kenobi doesn’t want you there?”

He probably won’t. He definitely shouldn’t. But Cody can survive Obi-Wan hating him, as long as he stays alive to do it. Cody had sworn protection, _haat, ijaa, haa’it_ , and that vow had been torn from him. Now, he intends to carry it through.

“If he wants me gone, then he can keep me at a distance,” Cody says, shelving the ache that springs up at that notion. “But someone needs to watch his back, and I don’t trust anyone else to. I have to do this.”

“You’re volunteering for what sounds like an awfully long mission, Commander,” Ventress points out. “Trouble finds Kenobi wherever he is, as reliably as the galaxy turns.”

He knows she’s testing him, but he takes the bait. “I don’t see you backing out of your own self-appointed mission just because the duration has changed,” he says, pointing a thumb at Vos.

Ventress smirks at him. “Fair enough. No need to be crass, Commander.”

“Not a Commander,” Cody says shortly.

Organa looks between them, brows furrowed, before a look of realization crosses his face. “Well,” he says. “I can spare you a ship, but it’ll take a few days to strip one enough that it won’t stand out like a gundark in a banquet hall.”

“No need, Senator. We’ll take you, Commander,” Vos says, giving Ventress a quelling look when she opens her mouth. “Our ship is fast, it’s on the way to Savareen, and we’ll be a smaller target with just the three of us. Besides, it’s not very often that I’m the one who gets to chide Obi-Wan for doing something stupid.”

Ventress scowls, but doesn’t argue. “We can take the Triellus,” she says.

“Right around the Hutts,” Vos agrees. When Ventress looks like she’s about to dispute that, he continues. “Our people first. Obi-Wan first. Slavers after.”

“ _Your_ people,” Ventress says mutinously, but shakes her head in resignation. “Fine.”

“We’ll report back, Senator,” Vos says.

“It’s settled, then. Thank you both,” Organa says, and then turns to Hunter, Tano, and Rex. “Come, we can sketch out a plan in more detail and see what we can manage between us.”

He leads them to another room, the handmaidens following silently, leaving Cody alone with the two sort-of Jedi. Great.

“You’re the one who saved Kenobi from Maul and his brother, Asajj, no need to pretend you hate the man,” Vos says, apparently not done with their conversation.

“It was a mutually beneficial arrangement at the time,” Ventress mutters.

Cody blinks. “Is that why he told me you weren’t a threat anymore?”

Ventress is abruptly very close, making him tense up. He has to consciously relax his grip on his blaster.

She is still as stone, watching him. “Listen to me closely, soldier boy. I am the greatest danger you’ve ever met. I lived in the Dark for ten years. I breathed it and I bled it. And it gave me a choice: I could let it own me but give me power, or I could fight it and be free. I chose to fight. So we fought, the Dark and I,” she says. She bares her teeth, eyes flicking just once to Vos. “I won, and I stole back from its jaws what it had taken from me.”

Cody doesn’t step back, though his instincts are screaming at him to. Ventress is a predator, but she isn’t here for him. He doesn’t let a single muscle move.

She examines him for a moment, and then steps back gracefully. “But no, I am not a threat to Kenobi or you,” she says. “At the moment.”

Rex would be chiding him for recklessness for what he’s about to say. He’s still going to say it. “All due respect,” and he hasn’t decided how much that is, “but I followed Obi-Wan through everything the war could throw at us for three years. So you don’t seem that dangerous to me.”

She gives him a slow, knife-edged smile. “You’re _interesting_ ,” she says. “Maybe Kenobi made a good choice, for once.”

“He let you go,” Vos says mildly. “That’s at least two.” 

“Mutually beneficial arrangement,” Ventress repeats, and rolls her eyes. “Males. Not a one of you has anything in your head.”

Vos grins. “You still don’t have to come.”

“Shut your mouth, Quinlan Vos.”

Organa walks back in with Tano, so Cody absents himself to find Rex, letting their bickering fade into the background.

-

Rex is standing in the third room he checks, looking out a window – Cody wonders what this place used to be, before it became Organa’s secret bunker. It must have been a base of operations for something, although he doesn’t recognize the looping script on the walls.

Rex says nothing, although he tips his head in acknowledgement when Cody walks into the room. Cody lets the silence sit for a little while, but then he sighs and gives in. Rex has always been able to out-stubborn him, and this is his responsibility to fix. He won’t leave things like this between them.

“Flask,” Cody says. “That’s who you should go after. He knows all the medics. Once his chip is out, he’ll help you. He might even be able to stay embedded.”

“I couldn’t ask that of any brother,” Rex says.

“He’ll probably volunteer.”

“Still. Only a few of us were trained for deep cover, and Flask definitely wasn’t.”

“You think a 212th man would leave a fight?” Cody asks.

“ _You’re_ leaving,” Rex says, and then pulls a face. “Sorry. That was unfair.”

Cody looks away for a moment before turning and meeting Rex’s eyes. “No, you’re right, and that’s the heart of it. I’m sorry.” Cody breathes in, breathes out. “I have to see him for myself. I have to make sure.”

“I know. I do know, Codes. I understand.”

“Rex,” Cody says. “Do you need me here? If you need me, say the word, _vod’ika_. I can wait. I know leaving now is selfish.”

“Oh, shut up,” Rex says, rolling his eyes. “After all the _osik_ we dealt with in the last three years, it’s not selfish to want to salvage something for yourself, something precious to you. It’s not selfish to want a little bit of happiness.”

“It’s selfish to leave you without backup for your self-declared crusade to free all our brothers from mind-control.”

“First of all, I’ll have Tano, and what, you don’t think I can handle it without you? I’m a big boy, Cody.”

Cody shoves him. “You know that’s not it.”

Rex softens. “I’ll be fine, I’m just giving you a hard time. Like Organa said, between all the rest of us we’ll manage it.”

“Well, you’ll know where to find me if you need me.”

“Maybe it’ll be easier without your huge ego getting in the way. You ever consider that?”

“You’re incredibly annoying, you know that?”

“I’m your _vod’ika_. It’s my right,” Rex says, and sticks out his tongue.

Cody, taking that as his cue, growls and launches himself at Rex and then they’re both laughing and yelling, roughhousing like cadets. Neither of them succeeds in trying to push the other to the floor until Cody manages to catch Rex in a headlock, pinning him until Rex coughs, almost purple, and taps his arm.

Cody lets him go and crouches, wheezing a little, while Rex pants next to him.

“I’m getting too old for that,” Cody says.

“Get karked, old man. You’re never too old to take your lumps.”

They both breathe for a few minutes.

“If I can stay,” Cody says, “you better come visit. Bring Tano.”

“As if you could stop us. _You_ better not die in the desert before I can come and punch your General’s lights out for losing mine. And for disappearing on you.”

“I think I’d object to that,” Cody says. “If he lets me.”

Rex mutters an oath, shaking his head. “If he lets you? You’re a karking idiot, Cody.”

Cody shrugs one shoulder.

“Don’t get caught and brainwashed again,” Rex says finally.

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

Rex stands, and pulls Cody up, clasping his arm.

“ _Ret'urcye mhi, ner vod_ ,” Rex says, grip firm before he lets go. “Good luck.”

“Thanks, Rex,” Cody says. “I’ll see you soon.”

He runs into Tano as soon as he walks out the door, and she cocks her head at him. “You’re leaving?”

Cody nods. “Rex has already sworn you’ll both visit, if Obi-Wan doesn’t kick me off the planet.”

Tano squints. “Yeah, I don’t think he’s gonna do that. But once we set up Hunter and the others and check in on my contacts, we’ll be dropping by,” she says, and looks away. “I didn’t exactly leave things on the best note with Obi-Wan. I do want to see him, and not just because he’ll know what happened to Anakin.”

“I’m sure he’ll want to see you, too,” Cody tries.

“Maybe,” Tano allows, and then shakes herself. “We’ll come. Tell him not to forget he has friends out here who don’t want him to die doing something stupid and heroic. Also, please prevent him from dying doing something stupid and heroic.”

“I’ll try,” Cody says drily. “If I can stay.”

Tano opens her mouth, but seems to think better of it. “All right, Cody. Keep yourself safe, and Obi-Wan, too.”

She offers him a hand, and they clasp arms. Cody smiles. “Oh, and Commander? Thanks for the save.”

“No problem, Commander,” Tano says. “See you in the desert.”

She goes to talk to Rex, and he finds a comm waiting for him when he checks the secure line Tech had set up – Vos and Ventress have had Ar-Six land their ship, and Artoo bullied the other droid into swapping missions.

Cody finds Organa back in the main room of the compound to give him a final salute. It’s strange, having the time to say farewells to everyone. He’s never really expected to be the one leaving.

“Safe travels, Senator,” Cody says, finding Organa contemplating a holomap of the sector as if it holds all the answers he’s looking for.

“You as well, Commander,” Organa says, but catches him by the arm before he can turn to leave. He lowers his voice. “If you’re going to him, you should know – Obi-Wan went with Padmé after Anakin, to the Separatist council on Mustafar. He wouldn’t tell me anything of what happened, but only he and Padmé came back, and she didn’t survive the birth. He kept saying that he’d failed Anakin, that it was his fault, but I don’t know what he meant.”

Cody’s mind skips, and then races. Skywalker had survived the order, but gone after the Separatists on Mustafar? Obi-Wan hadn’t brought him back? What had _happened_?

Organa rakes a hand through his hair, disheveling it. “Only Obi-Wan knows what happened down there, and I know your loyalty is with him. I would not change that. I will not ask you to tell me anything. But between the two of us, I don’t think he’s going to be taking much care with himself. As far as I know, he’s grieving for his brother, as well as his whole world.” Organa hesitates, then continues. “So please, take care of him. He might accept it, if it’s you.”

Cody pushes down the stone in his throat. “He would be a fool to accept anything from me, since I gave the order to kill him,” he says. “But I’ll try, Senator.”

“If it was actually you who gave that order, I wouldn’t be trusting you with this,” Organa says. “But it wasn’t you. You are your own man now, Commander. A man of as much worth as any other man.”

Cody smiles a little. “Obi-Wan always said you were one of the good politicians,” he says.

Organa huffs a laugh. “I’m glad to know I have his approval. Be safe, Commander, and know that you and Master Kenobi needn’t face the whole galaxy alone. You’ll always have a friend on Alderaan.”

-

Senator Organa had only trusted the coordinates to R2-D2, so they hit the Tatooine desert with only a vague heading from the droid’s increasingly agitated beeps.

“Whole lot of nothing out here,” Vos says. “Maybe Obi-Wan will tell us what he’s actually doing on this dustball.”

“It’ll be safer for all of us if he doesn’t,” Ventress says.

Cody hates to find himself agreeing with her. He had realized after they left that Organa never did tell them what Obi-Wan was doing on Tatooine – it must be something only Organa and Obi-Wan know about, something so secret that none of them should know it without very good reason.

Vos shrugs. “We’re full-fledged rebels, now, Asajj. We aren’t going to be safe anywhere in the galaxy.”

Ventress hums, and points at something on the viewscreen that Cody can’t pick out, even with his helmet’s sensors. “There. That’s human-made.”

Cody adjusts his view, and finds a doorway and a small home built into the rocks, along with a pair of metal structures which must be moisture vaporators.

Artoo gives a beep that sounds like confirmation.

“I’m setting us down here,” Vos says. “So he’ll see us coming. I’d be pretty jumpy, living out in the Wastes. Even if he hasn’t been here that long, there’s no way he hasn’t already run into the very unfriendly locals.”

Ventress lands them without comment in an unremarkable patch of sand, and Vos is out of the ship in a flash.

“I hate it when he does that,” Ventress mutters, but sighs and moves to the exit.

Cody follows her down the ramp and then has to pause when he sees a robed figure emerge from the home, one arm up to offer some shade from the late-afternoon glare of the suns.

Obi-Wan.

He feels like all his limbs are frozen, like if he moves even a little bit Obi-Wan might disappear. He can’t quite make himself push through the way his heart has kicked into hyperspeed. He’d spent so much time telling himself not to hope for anything that he completely forgot to brace himself for the reality of seeing Obi-Wan in person.

Vos bounds up to Obi-Wan in a few short leaps and crushes him in an embrace, and then withdraws to put a hand on his shoulder and prevent escape. From afar, it looks like he’s launching into a hell of a lecture.

Obi-Wan looks sunburned already, and more tired than Cody ever saw him, even after days without sleep during the war, on missions where it wasn’t safe to catch more than an hour at a time each. His robes match the sand around him, both washed golden in the light of the suns. But he’s smiling at Vos, though it’s only a shadow of the wide grin Cody had seen sometimes.

That grin had been increasingly rare in the last year of the war. Cody’d always felt a disproportionate sense of victory when he’d managed to make it appear.

Ventress pauses, evidently noticing that he hasn’t been able to make himself take another step, and comes back to punch him lightly in the shoulder. It’s a startlingly Tano-like gesture, and it brings him back to the present.

“Come on, soldier boy,” she says, and begins picking her way across the sand after Vos at a more sedate pace. For Ventress, it’s almost – kind?

Cody forces his feet to move, following her to where Vos is still lecturing Obi-Wan.

“I got pulled out of Boz Pity by some troopers who had taken their chips out, and Asajj decided to tag along because she’s assigned herself my keeper. Your friend the good Senator Organa told us you were on this dusty brown speck, and even lent us Artoo to find you,” Vos is saying as they near. “So don’t give me that face and tell me to get lost. You’ve helped fish me out of some nasty poodoo, Obi-Wan, let me return the favor. I know you love to feel miserable and alone and responsible for the whole galaxy, but as your friend, I refuse to accept that.”

“What he means is that we brought you company,” Ventress says, and pushes Cody in front of her. He only stumbles a bit before catching himself on the shifting sand and straightening up.

Obi-Wan pulls away from Vos and ignites his lightsaber immediately when he sees the blank helmet, lines of his face going hard.

Cody swallows, hears the click of it in his own throat.

“What have you done, Quinlan?” Obi-Wan asks tightly.

Vos scoffs. “Use your brain for a minute, Kenobi,” he says. “His chip’s gone.”

Cody closes his eyes for a moment to gather strength, and opens them again, resolved. Obi-Wan is alive and in front of him. The worst has already happened, and still they’re both standing here. What does he have to fear?

He takes his helmet off.

Obi-Wan stares at him, lightsaber lowering. “Cody?” he asks quietly.

It hurts more than he thought it would to hear his name again in that voice. Like something has been returned to him already, but he wasn’t prepared to know the shape of it. Hadn’t thought about how to hold it in his hands.

“ _Su cuy’gar,_ Obi-Wan,” Cody says.

Dimly, he registers Vos and Ventress turning away and moving back towards the ship, more polite than he’d really thought either of them were capable of being.

“Cody,” Obi-Wan says again.

Cody takes a step forward, and then hesitates. “I’m sorry,” he says, because he is, almost unimaginably so, and he needs to say it before that gasp that’s been caught in his throat for days finally rips its way free, because it deserves to be the first thing he says. “I’m so sorry, Obi-Wan. _Ni ceta_ , I failed you. I’m sorry.”

Obi-Wan is in front of him in an instant, lightsaber off. “Oh, Cody,” he says. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for. You had no choice. Bail commed and told me about the chips.”

Something about the world is shaking. Cody thinks it might be him. “I couldn’t fight it, it made me forget who I was, who you were, who you were to me – I thought I _killed_ you,” he says, voice breaking. “I thought you were gone. _Ni r'echoyli_ _._ ”

Obi-Wan shakes his head, saying nothing. He raises a hand, fingers alighting gently on Cody’s cheek, and Cody can’t help but turn into the touch like a plant stretching its leaves to the sun.

“I’m sorry. I thought you were gone,” Cody repeats.

“I’m still here,” Obi-Wan says, and pulls him in, solid and reassuring and steady on his feet, for all that he doesn’t look like he’s gotten much more sleep than Cody in the last few weeks. He presses their foreheads together and lets Cody clutch at him with desperate hands and then muffle a sob into his shoulder.

Obi-Wan’s robe is soft, and he is warm and pressed against Cody and alive, he is _alive_. Cody had known that with his head, but knowing it here is different. For a moment, the ground is still under his feet.

“I felt it, when the order took you away. It was like everything that was you had just – vanished. I didn’t realize what had happened. I didn’t understand it then, but I do now. You feel like yourself again,” Obi-Wan murmurs, pausing before he continues, as if choosing the words with utmost care. “It was painful.”

“I’m sorry I disappeared,” Cody says. “I’m sorry I did that to you.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know it wasn’t my fault, but I still should have been there,” he says, then steels himself and adds, “Senator Organa said you went to Mustafar. You shouldn’t have had to go alone.”

Obi-Wan’s arms tighten around him. “Oh,” he says, a punched-out little breath.

“You should never have to go alone.” Not for anything, and most of all not for something that could break you, Cody thinks.

“Cody,” Obi-Wan says, then falters. Maybe he catches the thought. His grip trembles so faintly that anyone else wouldn’t notice, but Cody knows this man like he knows his own breath. He would know him under layers of stone, in the heart of a desert with the twin suns setting fast, across half the galaxy and a lifetime.

The chip is gone, and nobody can take that away anymore. He knows what’s in his own mind.

Cody measures an inhale and an exhale. “Obi-Wan,” Cody says, pulling back to meet Obi-Wan’s eyes but unwilling to let go of him yet.

Obi-Wan closes his eyes for what feels like a long while to Cody even though it can’t be more than a few seconds, and when he opens them again his hands have stilled their shaking.

“I mean it,” Cody says softly.

Obi-Wan’s lips quirk up. He regards Cody calmly, as if Cody has managed to settle something in him already. As if maybe he’d been looking for solid ground, too.

“I know you do,” Obi-Wan says.

“I know I have no right to ask it, but whatever you’re here protecting, let me protect you while you’re doing it.” Cody pauses, sets his jaw, continues. “Even if you won’t let me stay.”

Amusement dances at the corners of Obi-Wan’s mouth, in the new brightness in his eyes. “ _Let_ you? You’re a free man, Cody. Do you want to stay on this dustball?”

Do you really want to stay here, with me? Cody hears in that too-light tone, as clearly as if asked aloud.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Cody says, a bloom of hope unfurling in his chest.

Obi-Wan presses a kiss to his wrist, and then his forehead, and then another, quick and chaste, to his mouth. “I don’t know how to be any other way, my dear.”

“Yes,” Cody says. “Yes, I want to stay. Let me go where you go, Obi-Wan.”

Obi-Wan could tell him he was packing for Umbara, for Mustafar, for _Utapau_ tomorrow, and Cody would follow him, if he but asked.

Let us share all, he dares to think. Obi-Wan has always made him emotionally reckless.

“Stay, then. _Ke nu’ba’slanar, Kote_ ,” Obi-Wan says, and gives Cody a smile fit to stop the sunrise.

“I’ll stay until you ask me to go,” Cody swears.

Obi-Wan’s smile widens. “I’ll have to try my best not to.”

-

(“I didn’t want to pressure you, I didn’t want you to think you had any sort of obligation. I couldn’t let my feelings interfere with my duties, and I didn’t know, and I couldn’t be the one to ask – it had to be you. I was waiting. I would have waited as long as you needed,” Obi-Wan says, forehead pressed to Cody’s and strong hands curled in his own.

I wanted it to be your choice, Cody hears in the undercurrents. You are a person, and I wanted you to have the choices that a person has. I wanted you to be able to choose something for your own, just because you wanted it. Just because you wanted me.

“We’re fighting a war,” Cody says, instead of any of the warm secrets that threaten to emerge. “You might have been waiting forever.”

“If I’d thought there was a chance, perhaps I would have considered saying something first.”

Shameless liar, Cody thinks, and gives himself a moment to feel ridiculously fond. Obi-Wan really would have waited forever. “And here I thought you were a gambling man,” Cody says, moving down to bite lightly at Obi-Wan’s throat, along the neat line of his beard.

Obi-Wan’s hands shift up to his hair, featherlight. Cody bites harder, and they press down ever-so-slightly. “Only when I know the odds, my dear,” Obi-Wan manages, voice catching when Cody moves.

Cody could listen to that voice for the rest of his life and he’d be content. “Obi-Wan,” he says, looking up and feeling the weight of the name on his tongue. He can count on one hand with fingers left over how many times he’s said it aloud, has only recently started letting himself even think it – but here it’s been freely given, and it slides into place with a curious rightness.

He’ll keep it close, keep it safe. _Ni kar’tayli gar darasuum. Ni cabu gar, haat, ijaa, haa’it_ , he thinks.

Obi-Wan hums a question and meets his eyes, raising an eyebrow. His fingers trace Cody’s scar carefully, like it’s something important. Obi-Wan’s bangs have grown long, and Cody gives in to the urge to brush them aside, because he can, and because this way it’s easier to slide a hand to the back of Obi-Wan’s neck and pull him down, so they can communicate more effectively.

Cody smiles, pressing his next words into Obi-Wan’s mouth. “This is me choosing you. I’m a sure bet.”)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ner vode, Kote. – Our brothers, Cody.  
> haat, ijaa, haa’it – truth, honor, vision (used to seal a pact)  
> Ret’urcye mhi, ner vod – Goodbye, my brother.  
> vod – brother  
> vod’ika – little brother  
> osik – shit  
> Su cuy’gar – Hello.  
> Ni r'echoyli – I was lost (I grieved)  
> Ni ceta - I'm sorry (lit: I kneel)  
> Ke nu’ba’slanar – Don’t leave.  
> Ni kar’tayli gar darasuum. – I’ll keep you in my heart forever. (colloquially “I love you”)  
> Ni cabu gar, haat, ijaa, haa’it – I’ll protect you, I vow it. 
> 
> When Cody thinks "Let us share all," he's thinking of the Mandalorian marriage vow: We are one when together, we are one when apart. We will share all, we will raise warriors.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, questions, headcanons, and yelling with me on [tumblr](https://keensers.tumblr.com) always appreciated <3 Thank you all for joining me on this journey - I hope you've enjoyed it.


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